Posted on: Wednesday, March 2, 2005
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Cherishing chocolaty Love Bites
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
Cookies are a Good Thing.
Twenty-four cookies is Too Much of a Good Thing.
This I learned on Valentine's Day weekend, judging the second annual "Cookies with Heart," a cookie contest sponsored by Kaka'ako Kitchen and benefiting the Ronald McDonald House.
The overall winner was a variation on a familiar theme called — sexily — Chocolate Cherry Love Bites. Gail Woliver of Kane'ohe developed them for her Valentine, Robert, who informed her long ago that he "only likes chocolate." Woliver took a recipe she and a girlfriend used to make all the time — a simple walnut butter cookie rolled in Rice Krispies cereal for extra crunch — and gave it a gourmet treatment, using mac nuts instead of walnuts, adding dried cherries, and, for Robert, using chocolate chips and Cocoa Krispies. This is how good these cookies are: They were the very last ones we tasted, when the thought of biting into one more cookie was almost agony. And yet they had us smiling and even taking a second bite.
Chocolate Cherry Love Bites
Cream together 1 cup butter and 1 cup sugar. Stir in 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Sift together 1 1/4 cup flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder and stir into cookie dough. Stir in 1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts, 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup whole dried cherries. Place 1 box Cocoa Krispies in a large bowl. With a spoon, drop a rounded teaspoon of dough into the cereal. Roll lightly and place on ungreased cookie sheet (or cookie sheet lined with cooking parchment). Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cookies will spread a bit, so don't crowd them.
Makes 36 cookies.
• Per cookie: 170 calories, 9 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 110 mg sodium, 20 g carbohydrates, less than 1 g fiber, 12 g sugar, 2 g protein
• • • Second-place went to 13-year-old Anela Vidinha of Pearl City, whose entry proved the axiom that simplest is sometimes best. My tasting notes are enthusiastic: "perfectly crisp, just what a sugar cookie should be."
Thump Print Cookies
Cream together 1 cup slightly softened butter, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in 2 cups flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add pecans and mix. Scoop up dough a teaspoon at a time, roll each one lightly into a ball, then place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press them into the center of each cookie. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove to cooling rack and cool completely. Make frosting and fill (follows).
Frosting
Mix together 1 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract and just enough water to create a creamy frosting consistency (not runny like icing). Blend in a few drops of red food coloring to get the desired color. Place in a pastry bag (or a Zip-loc bag with one corner snipped off) and squeeze a dollop of frosting into each thumbprint.
Makes 36 smallish cookies.
• Per cookie: 110 calories, 7 g total fat, 3.5 g saturated fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 70 mg sodium, 10 g carbohydrates, 0.5 g fiber, 4.5 g sugar, 1 g protein Other winners: Ransom Edison's Sandy Sesame cookies and Debra Godwin's passion fruit bars. Crisha Kamphorst won the presentation award.
