Midnight Crackles and Espresso Chocolate Shortbread -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Happy New Year and Happy 3rd Birthday to Tuesdays with Dorie! I am thankful to be a part of such a wonderful baking and blogging group and have learned so much and had so much fun with everyone at TWD since I started this blog in 2008.

Our 1st TWD pick of 2011 was chosen by our fearless leader Laurie at slush and her assistant Julie at Someone's in the Kitchen, they picked Dorie's Midnight Crackles to help us ring in the new year and what a fabulous pick it was! You can find the recipe here at the Tuesdays with Dorie site.

I tried one of these naughties warm from the oven and couldn't believe how delicious it was. I was asking myself if this was the best TWD cookie ever? They sure seemed like it. I don't know, but -- wow, these were a surprise hit. I am usually not a chocolate cookie fan, chocolate chip, yes, but chocolate dough, no thanks. But these were so decadent, they had me turning toward the dark side :) I'm also not a bittersweet chocolate fan but I had accidentally bought a huge bag of Ghiradelli Double Chocolate Bittersweet Chips from Sam's Club, thinking they were semisweet chips, and had those to use up so was glad to see bittersweet chocolate in this recipe.

I'm also trying to catch up on all of the Baking From My Home To Yours recipes I've missed either baking or blogging or both, kind of a new year blogging resolution. So along with *trying* not to miss any picks in 2011, (hey, I didn't miss any recipes my first year, so hopefully I can do it again!) I'm going to try to do at least two rewind recipes a month.

This first rewind is from last August, when Donna of Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First picked Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies -- recipe here. I actually made these back then but didn't get to post then (my boys were recovering from surgery) and even managed a couple of pictures. Above photo is after baking, I remember being surprised how well these held their shape and were such cute perfect squares.

This photo is a before baking shot featuring my youngest modeling his froggie hat. He wore that hat all the time after his surgery because of the stitches, in this photo you can see where he had a set of stitches on his forehead, I think there were only 3 or 4, but in back there were 19 stitches on the side of his head! It's nice to post these photos now and see how far he's come and healed up over the past 5 months. These cookies ended up being a hit with everyone, I think the only tiny change I made to the recipe was substituting out the espresso powder and subbing in some orange cappuccino powder that I had in the pantry, yum!

Thanks for visiting, wishing you all a happy and healthy new year and lots of fun in the kitchen :)