The cookies that I shared the other week have become such a firm family favourite (even with The Hub, who normally comments, 'It's okay,' when I ask what he thinks of my baking... before politely declining seconds) that I've now baked several batches of these little beauties.
But, it seems The Hub's love of these cookies may just be down to the chocolate! When I tested the cookies on my sister, she immediately commented on the quality of the chocolate - without knowing where it came from. I must admit, I certainly felt rather decadent baking with Hotel Chocolat buttons... but they did need using up!
When I ran out of both cookies and buttons The Hub (rather generously, I thought) offered to buy some more on the way home from work. His face must have been a picture at the till - £7.99 a bag!! Still, he brought them home, but a few bakes later I was out of buttons once again!! It was then that I spotted these at Tesco. 'Ah ha!' I thought, 'they might do the trick! Dark chocolate - no dairy! 70p for 100g has gotta be cheaper than Hotel Chocolat!'
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| Please note: these are the dark ones! |
100g, it turns out, do not a full cup make! Well you need a full cup, you see, to make the recipe - it's an American recipe and relies on measuring things in cups. I discovered, in fact, 100g makes only half a cup. Doh! So, on that occasion half a cup had to do. It was then that I wondered whether buying Silver Spoon buttons might not be a false economy.
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| A full cup |
It turns out they're not - wishful thinking on my part - nearly £2.00 per 100g! Yikes!! It'll most likely be Silver Spoon from now on then! Although, I did notice that they may contain milk, are made with soya (lecithin - I'm okay with that) and may also contain nuts and gluten. Didn't see that last one before - might explain my slightly dodgy gut the last few days (I did wonder). Hmm! Maybe not then!
So, if my little family are to continue enjoying our 'Alien' cookies, we have to find an alternative, which works out a bit cheaper than Hotel Chocolat. The solution may well consist of buying a bar or two of Kinnerton's, (£1.22 for 85g at Waitrose - so £1.44 for 100g) bashing it into shards (chunks even) and using those instead! Either that, or using half a cup of Hotel Chocolat - I found that using half a cup wasn't too bad after all!
Unless you know different, of course!
I have to agree I shudder at the thought of using expensive chocolate as chips in baking. Maybe its because I could just save the time and effort and sit and eat the chocolate on its own! Have you tried the Montezuma's dark buttons that I sell? They are only £2.79 for 180grams and have the punch of great chocolate but without the kick of a huge price tag!
ReplyDeleteOo! No, I haven't tried those yet. I've sometimes seen the bars around in some health food shops, though. I'll have to give them a try sometime.
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