I hold great store in stopping, mid-morning, for a break. And by that I don’t mean coffee at my desk. I mean actually stopping and moving elsewhere, if only for a few minutes. The half an hour or so in which I drink coffee and eat something small and sweet probably has its heart in the communal Swedish fika, but is different in that I usually take my break alone, as I invariably write until midday.
There will be coffee, a slice of cake, a spiced bun or a soft cookie. In deepest winter there may be a crumpet, its 100-plus holes full to the brim with melted butter and the merest scattering of salt flakes. Let us not kid ourselves. This is a carb break. The essential fuel for anybody who has been working since shortly after dawn. A favourite is anything that contains a freckling of chocolate chips: a warm, butterscotch-scented cookie perhaps, or a sponge cake with nibs of dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts rippled through its crumb. I tend to prefer my chocolate chips hand-chopped rather than the perfectly round sort you can buy in cellophane bags. Size does matter. Lumps that are too generous in size will make your cookies fall to pieces.
I’ve folded crumbs of chocolate into the toasted oatmeal, cream and raspberries of a cranachan (any marriage of dark chocolate and toasted oats being a thoroughly good idea), and over the surface of a tiramisu where the crisp-edged nibs introduced some welcome contrast to the layers of coffee-saturated sponge cake and mascarpone. We should never forget that tiramisu is more mid-morning pick-me-up than pudding. But I am perfectly content with a chocolate-chip cookie, or a slice of cake, bejewelled with dried fruits and little crumbs of dark chocolate, before I head back to work.
Chocolate chip, rose and marzipan cookies
The best moment to eat these soft cookies is when they are still warm, when the butterscotch notes of the brown sugar is still evident and the chocolate chips haven’t quite set. The raw dough will keep in the fridge, wrapped in greaseproof paper, for several days, so in theory you could slice and bake a batch at will.
Makes about 18
butter 125g
light muscovado sugar 75g
caster sugar 75g
egg 1
plain flour 250g
bicarbonate of soda ½ tsp
crystallised rose petals 20g
marzipan 200g
dark chocolate 150g
vanilla extract
You will also need a baking sheet, lined with baking parchment
Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Cream the butter and sugars together until they are light and the colour of milky coffee. You can do it by hand, but the lightest results are to be had from using an electric mixer fitted with a flat beater. Break the egg into a small bowl, mix the white and yolk together with a fork, then combine with the butter and sugar.
Mix the flour and bicarbonate of soda together and fold into the creamed butter and sugar mixture. Finely chop the rose petals and break or cut the marzipan into small pieces and add both to the mixture. Chop the chocolate into small nuggets then fold into the cookie dough with a couple of drops of vanilla extract.
Roll the mixture into spheres approximately the size of a golf ball, setting them out on the baking sheet, leaving room for them to spread. (I cook eight at a time on a 30 x 30cm baking sheet.) Bake for 10-12 minutes, until each cookie is pale and lightly risen. Remove the tray from the oven and leave to settle for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Continue with the next batch. The cookies will keep in a biscuit tin for several days.
Chocolate chip and apricot cake
The idea came from one of those strips of thick matchsticks of chocolate-dipped candied orange peel.
Serves 8-10
butter 250g
demerara sugar 250g
skinned hazelnuts 200g
eggs 4
plain flour 250g
baking powder 2 gently heaped tsp
espresso coffee 3 tbsp
soft dried apricots 200g
dark chocolate 250g
Line the base of a 23cm spring-form cake tin with baking parchment. Set the oven at 180/gas mark 4. Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a food mixer fitted with a flat paddle beater and beat until light and creamy. It is worth regularly stopping the machine and scraping the mixture down from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Scatter the hazelnuts on a baking sheet, then brown them lightly in the oven, or toast them on the hob in a dry pan, moving them so they brown evenly. Remove the nuts from the pan and chop finely. They should be the texture of grit. Break the eggs into a bowl and mix lightly with a fork. Introduce the beaten egg, a little at time, to the butter and sugar. Mix in the flour and baking powder then fold into the batter, then add the espresso.
Finely chop the apricots – a food processor is good for this – then chop the chocolate into small pieces. Fold all of the chocolate and most of the apricots and hazelnuts into the mixture, leaving just enough to scatter over the surface after baking. Transfer the mixture to the lined cake tin and bake, in the centre of the oven, for about 75 minutes until the cake is lightly springy to the touch and just starting to come away from the sides of the tin. Scatter the reserved apricots and nuts over the surface.
Leave to cool in its tin, slide a palette knife around the edge then remove the cake from its tin.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter@NigelSlater
