A perfect combination of Brazil, Vietnam (and Canada), Peru, and Mexico!
It’s hard to still think that there is a day when I get to travel and share my cooking recipes with my friends in Brazil. To share and learn how to cook from each other is not a new thing to me. I do that all the time when I’m in Canada. I have a group of friends who are also interested in cooking and are really professional in cooking and creating their own recipes, from food to sweets to drinks and desserts. One of them used to own a KitchenAid stand mixer, the dream of every cook.
The story started when I came to Brazil and stayed at my host’s house. It’s an AIESEC friend’s house actually. The people here who had known me before i arrived knew me through Facebook, and they found out I had tons of pictures about food. I told them I loved cooking, and my dream was to open a small café in Saigon, where i grew up. We got to talk more about this topic after I arrived and I figured i should to something too. So, I decided to bake sweets. It’s less messy, and everybody can try it, not like the dishes that some might like, some might not. They asked me what I can make and what I like to make, and I said, I can make anything as long as I see the recipe and find the ingredients.
They are all excited about cookies. I guess because it’s not a common sweet here in Brazil, not to mention they have tons of good sweet treats, like brigadero (like of like chocolate fudge balls). One day, a small group consisting of an Aiesecer and 3 interns, one from Vietnam, one from Mexico, and one from Peru, decided to make cookies. We had a hard time, however, to find the chocolate chips (one of the reason why chocolate chip cookies are not common here), even Walmart doesn’t carry this product. We figured we could just by the chocolate bars and break them into chunks. It would make nice traditional cookies like the old days. Besides that, brown sugar was another hard item to find in Sorocaba. I bet these are easy to find in Sao Paulo, but not here. And so, we made our cookies with chocolate bars and white sugar, instead of chocolate chips and brown sugar. Just a little note: I’m not the one who made these cookies. I just stood beside and explained the steps. It was my friend Guilherme whose hands were in the pictures. The other interns were there to observe and give some good tips. That’s why we called it international cookies.
Ingredients: – 2 cups of flour
– 1 teaspoon bicarb (baking soda)
– 1 cup of butter
– Chocolate chunks (broken from a bar)
– 2 cups sugar
– 2 eggs
Process:
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| Preheat the oven at 190C or 375F |
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| First, mis the flour with the baking soda (you can add a bit of salt to the flour too). Then, add the cold butter bar in the middle. |
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| Rub the flour against the butter until it becomes a fine mix of crumbs |
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| In another bowl, break in 2 eggs |
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| Add the sugar in with the eggs |
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| Beat the sugar and the eggs until combined. Do not beat for too long since it can cause the cookies to be hard later |
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| Add the egg mixture, together with the chocolate chunks, into the buttered flour and mix well to form a ball. The dough will be a bit runny since the butter starts to melt, but do not add more flour. All you have to do is form the dough into a nice ball and kep in the refrigerator for around 15 mins. (DO NOT put it into the freezer) |
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| Form the dough into small balls as desired. Depending on the size of the balls, you have to time the baking part differently. If you use a soup spoon to coop the dough for each cookie, the baking time should be around 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how hard and crunchy you want them to be. |
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| Put the babies i the oven and wait… I think it’s the hardest part |
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| DONE!!!!!!!!! Use a flat tool to press them a bit to creat cracks and help them cool faster. DO NOT press to hard because they are still hot and soft, and will break easily |
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| Funny guy smiling at the food O.o |
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| Waiting with pre-drink… |
Notes:
– There is actually no notes for this recipe since the ingredients are pretty basic. you can add other stuff to the dough too, such as nuts, M&M, peanut butter, candies….
– Actually, you can add the chocolate chunks in together with sugar and eggs before beating, it’s your choice. Since you don’t have to mix a lot, it’s fine whether to put them before ur after mixing the sugar and eggs. I don’t suggest adding the chunks after mixing the wet and dry ingredients, since they won’t mix well into the dough.
– To give the cookies a nice brown color, you should substitute white sugar with brown sugar. It also has a certain moist in it that makes the cookies more chewy. If no brown sugar can be found, the sugar bar made from palm tree can also be used. Just break it into fine crumbs. the palm sugar will make a nice taste for the cookies.
– To give the cookies a nice brown color, you should substitute white sugar with brown sugar. It also has a certain moist in it that makes the cookies more chewy. If no brown sugar can be found, the sugar bar made from palm tree can also be used. Just break it into fine crumbs. the palm sugar will make a nice taste for the cookies.
