On a whim I decided to enter this year's annual Christmas cookie contest sponsored by the

W

wigs

Well-known member
Indianapolis Star newspaper.

My cookie recipe didn't win any of the grand prizes, but it WAS selected as one of the 15 finalists out of a total of 250 or so entries. LInk for newspaper article is in Link URL--my name appears in the very last paragraph.

Following you'll find the recipe originally given to me in 1990 by an acquaintance, Betty Brown, along with my adaptations.

You can obtain the recipes for all the 2008 cookie entries by going to the Star's data base at:

http://www.indystar.com/data/living/recipes.shtml?appSession=813140021724608

Chocolate Cordial Cups

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (I use unsalted butter.)

3 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup sugar

2 oz semi-sweet chocolate (The original recipe called for unsweetened chocolate, but I thought that was awful so I changed it to semi-sweet.)

2 Tbsp butter or margarine (Again, use unsalted butter.)

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp Grand Marnier or Cointreau or cherry liqueur

In a small mixer bowl combine 1/2 cup butter, cram cheese and 1/3 cup sugar, beating until fluffy. Stir or sift together flour and cocoa and add to creamed mixture. Chill. Divide dough into 24 balls. (I use a 35-mm scoop to speed this part up.) Press each ball onto bottom and sides of an ungreased 1-3/4-inch muffin pan cup. (I use non-stick 1-3/4" muffin tins that I also lightly spray with PAM.)

In a small saucepan melt chocolate and 2 Tbsp butter over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in 1/2 cup sugar, egg, vanilla and liqueur. Divide chocolate filling mixture evenly among muffin cups. Bake at 325 degrees F for about 20 minutes or until filling is set. (Original recipe said to bake for 25 to 30 minutes, but that was way too long, IMHO.) Remove from oven and cool slightly. (I let mine sit for about 10 minutes in the pans.) Remove carefully with a narrow metal spatuala and finish cooling on cake rack.

Notes from Caryn: This makes 24 exactly. Do not fill your dough-lined tins very full, or you will run short of the chocolate filling.

Hope you like these! Guess they are a chcoolate twist on a tassie.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20081203/LIVING07/812030304/1272

 
Way to go, AWESOME FOR YOU~ I also love the recipe you posted, New Year's Eve choice definitely ~ smileys/smile.gif

 
Caryn, that's great!

Having gotten mention in a local magazine this holiday season, I can understand the feeling!

Save a couple of copies of the article for the future.

 
Dawn_MO, not to worry as I also answer to Wig, Wiggie or Wigs! An old high school chum dubbed me

with all 3 of those back in the 60s which was one key reason (I had several!) that I never changed my surname to my husband's upon marriage as it would really look nutso to have people calling me "Wigs or Wiggie or Wig" with a last name other than Wiggins.

Caryn aka Wigs aka Wiggie aka Wig!

 
Thanks for all the kudos. I'm sure you would also have a great end result using bittersweet choc in

place of the semisweet I substituted if any of you prefer the more adult flavor of a darker chocolate. I'm a die-hard milk chocolate fan (not Hershey's but the good European chocolates like Callebaut) so semisweet is about as "FER" as I can get my taste buds to go!

The only problem you might have making these cordials is getting the baked ones out of the muffins cups in one piece. Be patient and careful and use a light touch. I ruined a couple batches at first, but finally figured out I needed to use non-stick pans plus spray lightly with PAM plus wait to unmold about 10 minutes after removing from the oven.

Of course, none of my ruined batches went to waste in this house as the taste was still excellent. smileys/wink.gif

I also often garnish these with red & green maraschino cherry halves (dry them well wrapped in paper towels first) for a nice Christmasy look at holiday time.

 
Thx, Suz, and I don't see why butter wouldn't work just fine. I use PAM mainly becuz it's a faster

application. When I cater, I generally am cranking those Cordials out by quadruple recipes at a time.

 
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