Chocolate-Orange-Espresso Thins (Pg 220)

Is there a better way to spend a cold, grey, rainy Tuesday afternoon than studying for a Business Law exam and baking cookies? If there is, I have yet to discover it.

My normal Monday baking routine was interrupted by what felt like an oncoming cold. I felt slightly unwell, so I spent most of the day sleeping. Of course, come 7pm I felt like I had wasted the day and I needed to do some baking, so I found a recipe that called for refrigeration overnight.

Lo and behold, the question I posed after I made the Chocolate-Black Pepper cookies was answered in this recipe. The question was how do I make sure the dough log stays in a perfect round shape while being refrigerated? The answer is a paper towel tube. I kid you not. I'm not sure why it doesn't call for this for all of the recipes that require the log to be refrigerated - maybe it depends on the size of the finished cookie. Well I guess this cookie's diameter was small enough that the log would fit in a paper towel tube, and there you go. It did indeed help keep the roundness, but they still didn't come out perfect. I know there are at least 3 other recipes that call for making a log and slicing it....hopefully by the end I'll have a perfectly shaped round cookie. I am constantly seeking perfection.

These cookies were very similar to the Chocolate-Black Pepper cookies. One difference, and something which had me quite perplexed as I was mixing the dough, was that this dough used only confectioner's sugar and not regular granulated sugar. I thought this was so strange, but I figured, as with most strange things in baking, there was a reason and that once the cookie was finished I would understand the reason.

I was right. The reason for the confectioner's sugar is that this cookie has a light, flaky consistency, almost like a wafer. Confectioner's sugar is what gives it that light airiness. It is, in fact, almost like a shortbread, but not as dense.

Again, I am not too crazy about this cookie. The flavors are nice. The orange zest gives it a nice kick. But eh. Nothing too special. But maybe I just have to wait until tomorrow, when the flavors have mingled more. We shall see.

Yield:
Recipe predicted: About 4 dozen
Actual: 53 cookies (about 4.5 dozen)

12 recipes down, 163 to go.