Episode 73
October 23, 2011
Tarantula Cookies
Happy Halloween everyone! If you’re looking for a fun and simple cookie to make that’s halloween-themed and kid friendly then this is the recipe for you.
The cookie itself is a dense chocolate cookie which then has pretzel sticks inserted into the cookie. After baking the cookie is then glazed or coated with chocolate, covered with chocolate sprinkles, and two candies (like m&m’s) are stuck on as eyes.
These spider cookies are another recipe I found in Rachael Ray magazine. I was initially drawn to the recipe for a couple reasons. For one, I wanted to do something a little simpler than I did for Halloween last year (check out the graveyard brownies episode) but also because I’m always looking for ways to get out of tempering chocolate. Between you and me, I hate tempering chocolate! I know, I know it really isn’t that difficult and if I just practiced more I would get as fast at it as I was in school, but I don’t have the same facility at home that I did in school.
At school we had large marble tables that we could use for what is called the tabling method for tempering chocolate. The fat in chocolate (cocoa butter) is actually several different kinds of fat which all set up at different temperatures and want to set up in different shapes. When the chocolate isn’t tempered, the fat forms different fat crystals which sets off a chain reaction in the chocolate. The result is a dull, brittle chocolate which has fat bloom – a whitish-grayish streak on the surface and throughout the chocolate. The flavor may be affected but the appearance and the lack of that nice crisp snap is much more undesirable.
Before tempering the chocolate, it needs to be melted. Depending on the type of chocolate depends on how high it should be heated: 122 degrees F for dark and 115 degrees F for milk and white. This high heat makes sure all the fat crystals are melted – too much higher and the chocolate will burn or seize (get thick).
The tabling method tempers the fat by incorporating two solutions. First, melted untempered chocolate (2/3 of the amount) is poured onto the marble slab. Then using a stainless steel paint scraper, bench scraper, and/or offset spatula the chocolate is manipulated. Examples of the manipulation include spreading it very thinly, scraping it up, pushing chocolate on top of itself, and moving it around it general. This agitation helps make sure the fat crystals are all the same shape. The second solution is that the cold marble helps cool the chocolate quickly so lots of those desirable fat crystals form quickly – which is great because all that work is killer on your hand. Once the chocolate on the marble is tempered it is poured back into the remaining 1/3 of chocolate in the bowl. At this point the chocolate needs to be cooled to 90 degrees F for dark chocolate, 88 degrees F for milk, and 86 degrees F for white. If it hasn’t reached this temperature, the chocolate needs to be poured onto the marble again and cooled some more. In addition, even if the temperature has been reached the chocolate may not be tempered.
To check for temper a test must be taken. Dip a tool (like a small offset) or a piece of parchment paper into the chocolate. If the chocolate sets up quickly then the chocolate is tempered. That’s another sign of untempered chocolate: Untempered chocolate takes so long to set up that it’s actual fluid for a very long time and even when it sets up it melts very quickly. Once the chocolate is tempered then it can be used for various purposes like pouring into molds, coating, piping, and more. (I cover two other methods for tempering chocolate in the petits four glace episode including vaccination method and microwave or direct method).
In addition to being a long tedious process, chocolate is extremely messy and is a chore to clean up. Add that to the inevitable accidents that occur during all that tempering and you’ve got all the reasons I tend to shy away from tempered chocolate – especially for home baking.
So when I saw in this recipe that the vegetable oil was added to the chocolate and then no lengthy tempering directions followed I immediately thought (more like blindly hoped) that the oil could be a great way to avoid tempering chocolate. Unfortunately, no such luck. True the oil helps stave off fat bloom for a little while longer (up to 4 days in the refrigerator) but the chocolate melts quickly on your fingers and those characteristic streaks show up eventually. That being said, if you’re serving these cookies right away or the next day this method is very useful and allows you to use real chocolate.
If you don’t want to use this method because you want tempered chocolate but you don’t want to go through the lengthy procedure of tempering then you can use coating chocolate. Coating chocolate is chocolate that has the cocoa butter removed and replaced with vegetable oil. This allows the chocolate to set up firmly without tempering. Coating chocolate goes by many names: Coating chocolate, summer coating, chocolate bark, morsels, and candy melts. Even those chocolate chips in the baking aisle could be coating chocolate – read the label! If one of the major ingredients is palm or vegetable oil (even more tell-tale is that cocoa butter is nowhere in the ingredients) then it’s coating chocolate. There are different qualities of coating chocolate. The lowest level of coating chocolate (usually called candy melts) don’t even have chocolate in them but rather chocolate flavoring. Make sure you read the ingredients and know what you’re getting!
Is there anything wrong with using coating chocolate? No! Restaurants, grocery stores, and even bake shops use coating chocolate for quick chocolate work and dipping cookies. Coating chocolate tends to be sweeter than real chocolate so it even has a candy-like flavor that people (especially kids!) seem to really like. In addition, many times chefs in commercial kitchens don’t have the time or space to temper chocolate. Resorts tend to use tempered chocolate because they make chocolate showpieces but even they cheat a little bit. The resort I worked at had a chocolate tempering machine – the chocolate was always melted and kept in temper.
Whichever method you choose is fine. If you’re making these cookies for a picky adult crowd, making them a week or so ahead or time, or have a lot of extra time then try tempered chocolate. If you’re doing these on the fly, don’t plan on storing them, don’t like tempering chocolate, or making them for kids use the method in the episode or coating chocolate. The method in the video is also good for people who don’t have access to coating chocolate and don’t have time to temper the chocolate. To be honest, the only difference between untempered melted chocolate and the method in the episode is the addition of oil.
Anyway, I hope I haven’t overloaded you with all kinds of chocolate information! I know that I go over this information semi-frequently in my blog but it’s important to keep this chocolate information in front of you all so that if you ever want to try tempering chocolate it’s easy to find. I’m going to try to use tempered chocolate more often (maybe) so you all can see how to temper chocolate. In the meantime Ghirardelli has a very good video on tempering chocolate.
Here is the recipe for the tarantula cookies and the video is below! Thank you for watching!
