Sometimes a cookbook comes along and completely surprises you. I confess, I had low expectations for this cookbook. Not because I don't love Food52 or Erin's writing, but because it's difficult to do this kind of "instructive baking for the home cook" well. I've purchased a lot of duds that skewed towards too simple/dumbed down and/or too boring (the world needs only so many recipes for the basic sugar cookie, brownie, yellow cake, etc).
Erin's cookbook is everything an informative cookbook needs to be for the home baker. Inside this squat but many-paged tome, Erin has included recipes for a few basics, along with explanations for why they work (like the high ratio cake - aka why commercial bakeries use shortening in their cakes and why you might want to too). Beyond explanations of recipes themselves, this book is stuffed with tips for keeping your brown sugar soft, fixing a broken buttercream, etc as well as lengthy explanations and detailed photos for different pie crust styles, lattice weaves, weighing out crumb crusts for your pan size, etc.
The vast majority of Erin's recipes are either a spin on well loved classics or something you're unlikely to find in most/any other baking cookbook. I'm not sure I'll ever try her lemon-licorice meringue pie, but only because I'm not sure I like licorice that much. Her peppermint fluff cupcakes and butterscotch blondies however are going to become a part of my baking rotation.
What I like:
Clear recipe writing
Interesting recipes
Beautiful pictures of everything
Great advice and explanations about why things are done a certain way
What I don't like:
I wish the book were a little taller, so more of the recipe fit on a single page
What I've made:
Butterscotch blondies
Apricot cream cake
Peppermint devil's food high hat cupcakes
Verdict:
If I had to pick only three dessert cookbooks, this one would make the cut
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Flourless Cocoa Cookies from The Fearless Baker
Makes 22 cookies
Whenever I’m called upon to make something gluten-free, I opt for classics that are naturally sans wheat flour—like Pavlovas, Macarons, Macaroons, and these flourless cocoa delights. These cookies are tender, delicately chewy, and incredibly chocolaty—if a brownie and a cookie had an affair, this would be their love-child. I like to add a sprinkling of flaky Maldon salt, because these are for grown-ups.
Difficulty: Easy.
Make ahead and storage: The cookies can be stored airtight for up to 1 week.
Ingredients:
170 g / 3 large eggs
340 g / 3 cups powdered sugar
106 g / 1¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 g / ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 g / ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
7.5 g / 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
142 g / 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks
Maldon salt, for sprinkling
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, lightly whisk the eggs.
3. Sift together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add to the eggs, whisking until the mixture forms a smooth batter, about 1 minute. Add the vanilla and chocolate chunks and mix until fully incorporated; switch to a rubber spatula if necessary. The batter will be very thick and sticky.
4. Use a #30 / 2-tablespoon scoop to portion the batter onto the prepared baking sheets—stagger the cookies, leaving about 1½ inches between them. Sprinkle a little Maldon salt on each cookie.
5. Bake the cookies, rotating the sheets from front to back and top to bottom at the halfway mark, until set around the edges and cracked on top, 10 to 12 minutes. The cookies may look slightly underbaked in the center—that’s exactly what you want. Cool the cookies completely on the pans.
Why It Works
Like brownies, these cookies get the bulk of their structure from eggs rather than flour. A healthy dose of cocoa powder doesn’t provide structure in the same way that flour does, but it helps the batter more closely resemble cookie dough and not spread too much in the oven.
Pro Tip: Err on the side of underbaking these cookies—they’re loaded with chocolate, and just like melted chocolate, they set up as they cool. You can think of baked goods made with substantial amounts of chocolate as a little like steaks: You need to allow for carryover cooking.
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