Chili Chocolate Domo Cookies

I have always loved Domo.

Domo is the mascot for NHK, one of Japan's broadcasting television stations in Japan. He's brown, furry, and looks like he would be mean (those teeth!), but in fact he's quite endearing and not scary at all. Domo loves Japanese potato and beef stew but hates apples, due to something about his DNA. Domo originally cracked from an egg and lives in an underground cave with a rabbit (Mr. Usaji) and his friends. He became popular when he appeared in a series of shorts shown on television in 1998 in honor of NHK's 10th anniversary.

Although I've made countless versions of Totoro, Keroppi, and Hello Kitty, I've only made Domo once in food form - as hamburgers a couple years ago.

I've been wanting to make Domo as a cookie for awhile now. Ever since I saw Diamonds for Dessert make Domo into sandwich cookies, I've been trying to think of a way to make a Domo cookie that looks 3D instead of flat.

After much brainstorming, I finally came up with a way that seems to really accentuate Domo's huge open mouth yet still keep him looking cute, the way he should be.

To put a slight twist on the traditional chocolate cookie, I spiced up the batter by adding some chili powder and a touch of cinnamon, similar to Mexican chocolate. After all, a Domo cookie should have some kick, right?

Although this recipe is not difficult, it does require some time. In order to get the best performance from your cookie dough, you need to refrigerate it so that it's cold. It's much, much easier to work with this dough when it's a bit cold.

Working fast, cut out the Domos with a rounded square cutter. I actually didn't have a cookie cutter this shape, but I did have a random tiny plastic storage container that happened to be just about the right size. Of course, you can easily buy rectangular cookie cutters or cookie cutter sets that will work.  I just didn't plan ahead and had to be resourceful with what I had at home.

In half of the Domos, cut out a mouth using a tiny rectangular cookie cutter. Of course, I didn't have any on hand. You can easily make cookie cutters by cutting up some plastic from the top of a take-out container, which is what I did. The benefit of making your own is that you can cut it to be exactly the right size. The negative, of course, is that the plastic cutter is flimsier and won't cut as cleanly.

Nevertheless, I was able to make do and cut out several Domo mouths successfully.

For best results, freeze the first half of the already completed cookies while you cut the other half. This prevents the first batch from losing its shape or warming up too much.

Bake until slightly crispy and browned on the edges, about 8-10 minutes. Let cool.

There are many ways to start decorating. For my birthday, my friend have given me black edible ink markers and colored edible ink markers, which are great for decorating. Of course, if you'd rather not use artificial coloring in your baking, you can consider making jam based Swiss "linzer" style cookies, which I'll show below.

In order to have Domo's mouth show through boldly, we will "paint" a layer of white chocolate onto the bottom Domo cookies (the ones that do not have a mouth cut-out).

White chocolate is tricky to melt, so definitely watch it carefully. You can melt white chocolate in the microwave in small spurts. First, heat for 1 minute at 50% power. Then heat in 30 second increments at 50% power until the chocolate just starts to become soft. It may still look solid when it's read, but poke at it with a fork. It should sort of collapse and become easily stirrable when it's ready.

It took me about less than 2 minutes total to get it soft enough so I could swirl it around and spread it.
If I had a paintbrush, I would have used it. Unfortunately, I did not have one, so I used a fork, which works OK, but the resulting surface is not as smooth as it would be with a paintbrush.

Although you can paint the entire length of the cookie, you can also just paint in the area over the mouth (see half-painted one at the bottom), if you don't love the flavor of white chocolate.

Place a cookie with a mouth over the white chocolate side in order to see how to draw out the teeth. Using a red colored edible ink marker, draw an outline of the teeth.

Remove the cookie and fill in the red part of the mouth. Draw on the eyes using a black edible ink marker.

Assemble and serve!

On top I made a few jam "linzer" style cookies. The traditional Swiss linzer cookie is a shortbread sandwich cookie with jam peaking out of a "window". In this case, the jam is peaking out of Domo's mouth.

Although you don't have to paint the jam cookies with white chocolate, I found that the white background made the jam look much brighter red than when you just spread the jam directly on top of the dark chocolate cookie.

I think both Domos are cute, though obviously the one with teeth looks more authentic. If you're up for it, you can always try forming teeth out of white chocolate to add to the jam version. I tried cutting white chocolate into teeth, but it was too hard to shape it so precisely.

Maybe I need to buy a teeth chocolate mold or a zig zag cutter!

Enjoy!


Chili Chocolate Domo Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or other chili powder)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 oz white chocolate (1/2 of a 4-oz bar)

Chocolate Cookie
Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, cinnamon, and chili powder.

Cream butter and powdered sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until just combined.

Divide dough in half; flatten each half into a disk, and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour (or overnight).

Between pieces of wax paper, roll out one disk of dough to just under 1/4 inch thick. Optionally transfer to a baking sheet; freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Cut out "Domos" using a large rectangular cookie cutter. Using a small square cookie cutter, cut out "mouths" from half the Domos. Optionally freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

Bake cookies until crisp, about 8 minutes, firmly tapping down sheets once and rotating them halfway through. Let cool completely on wire racks. Note, I used a convection toaster oven for this step, which worked just fine.

White Chocolate
Melt white chocolate in the microwave in small spurts. Heat for 1 minute at 50% power. Then heat in 30 second increments at 50% power until it's a bit jiggly. It took me about less than 2 minutes total to get it soft enough so I could swirl it around and spread it.

Assembly
Paint the melted white chocolate onto the flat Domo "bottom" half pieces. Let dry completely.

Using edible-ink markers, draw teeth designs onto the white chocolate with a red marker. Color in his mouth. Alternatively, spread a small amount of a red fruit jam (e.g., raspberry, strawberry) onto the area where his mouth would be.

Place the Domo cooke half with the mouth cut-out on top.

For fun, you can take the mouth cut-out cookies and make baby Domos (see above). In that case, I just cut out tiny rectangle white chocolate pieces and drew the teeth on directly.

Serve!


Related Posts:
Domo Hamburgers
Totoro Cookies
Totoro Rice
Hello Kitty Rice Crispy Treats
Kyaraben on Steroids

Toasted Hobnob Ice Cream Sandwiches

What a surreal weekend.

Bryan and I had basically just stepped off the plane, back from a trip to Japan, when we started hearing about the crazy, unprecedented "monster" storm that was headed our way. We were advised to stock up on food, water, batteries, and first aid kits. People had learned (the hard way) during Hurricane Irene that it was possible to be out of power for days on end.

My refrigerator was empty, having been completely cleaned out in anticipation of my trip to Japan.

Bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, I jostled with the insane crowds at Trader Joe's on Sunday to pick at whatever was left in the store. For some odd reason, Bryan had to wait in almost equally long lines at Microcenter. Were people stocking up on computer games? Hard drives and motherboards?? OK, maybe flashlights and batteries. 

Monday we hunkered down and stayed at home, bracing ourselves for the rain and heavy winds that would come. We spent the day on our computers, working. As the storm built in intensity, we stared out the window, in awe (and nervousness!), as we watched large trees sway around in the strong gusts of wind.

We ate simply. Pasta Carbonara for lunch and Baja style fish tacos for dinner.

As the winds began dying down around 9PM, we tore our eyes away from the Weather Channel to enjoy a nice, relaxing dessert.

A sigh of relief. No loss of power. No floods in the basement.

To celebrate, we munched on homemade Hobnob ice cream sandwiches.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile, you may know that Grape Nut Ice Cream is one of my all time favorite flavors. It's virtually the only flavor I ever get at Toscanini's, and it was one of the few recipes I chose to feature in my final winning post for Project Food Blog.

I'm also a huge fan of Hobnobs, that British, oat-based biscuit that's oddly really, really addictive (yes, I even tried making my own once).

When Bryan brought me back tons of Hobnobs from a recent trip to Europe (so many that they started going stale), I decided that making ice cream was the perfect way to use up a chunk of my stash.

First step: Toast the Hobnobs
I learned this by accident, but toasted Hobnobs taste incredible, much better than normal untoasted Hobnobs. The slight caramelization of the sugars during the browning process gives the cookies a deeper, richer flavor, not to mention an incredible aroma while baking. Even though I was originally just trying to revive stale Hobnobs, they tasted so good I decided that I would always toast my Hobnobs from now on.

Crush up the Hobnobs and add them to your ice cream base right after taking it out of the machine. I would recommend completely pulverizing at least half of the Hobnob batch, and then crushing the other half into slightly larger chunks. There are many ways of doing this. I would recommend putting the cookies in a plastic Ziploc bag and just crushing the cookies with your hands.

Once well mixed, freeze for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight before serving.

Serve as a normal ice cream or make Hobnob ice cream sandwiches!

Hobnob Ice Cream
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups half and half
¾ cups sugar
4 egg yolks
¼ to ½ cups crushed Hobnobs (divided between finely crushed and coarsely crushed)
Additional Hobnob cookies for making sandwiches (optional)

Day 1
Heat the half & half, heavy cream, and sugar in a pot on medium low heat until the sugar is dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the egg yolk mixture into the hot cream mixture while continually stirring.

Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon (~8-10 minutes). Optionally filter the cooked liquid and allow to cool overnight in the refrigerator.

Day 2
Toast Hobnobs in the toasted oven until lightly browned, around 4 minutes. Once cookies are cool, crush half of the cookies in a plastic bag until finely crushed. Break up slightly larger chunks by hand. Set aside.

Pour the cream mixture into the ice cream maker and make ice cream according to the manufacturer's instructions. When the ice cream is "done," pour toasted Hobnobs into the mixture and stir by hand until incorporated. Freeze finished product for at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.

Optionally make sandwiches by putting a scope of ice cream between two Hobnob cookies.

Note: you can store the sandwiches by wrapping them individually in plastic wrap.

Enjoy!

Totoro Cookies

This post is part of a larger series: An Asian Twist on a Traditional Holiday Meal. Other posts in this series include Chinese Oven Roasted Duck, and Keroppi Cookies.

I've always been a sucker for matcha (green tea) cookies.

Until now, I never even considered trying to make them myself. Instead, I would purchase them at specialty bakeries, usually Japanese or Taiwanese.

However, when Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program called for bloggers to participate in the GLAD Cookies for Kids Cancer cookie exchange, I decided it was time to challenge myself and try my hand at baking these cookies myself.

Of course, I couldn't just make any ordinary cookies.

Not if I'm going to give them away.

Alas, Totoro Matcha cookies were born.


Matcha is finely milled green tea often used in sweets such as green tea flavored ice cream, cakes, and cookies. Because matcha is made from high quality tea buds and requires more time for grinding, it is usually more expensive than other teas. For example, the little 1.0 oz tin that I bought costs $12.

I took a simple butter cookie recipe from The Joy of Cooking (my go-to basics book!) and modified it by adding matcha (Thanks Talida for the inspiration!).

In order to make Totoros, you need two different types of cookie dough: a green matcha one for his exterior, and a white one for his belly.
 
I did not have a Totoro cookie cutter, bit I found a rabbit egg mold that sort of resembled Totoro's shape. It wasn't perfect, so I still had to use a knife to cut out the ears. However, it was useful to have the mold as a guide, keeping all the Totoros roughly the same size.

Since I don't usually bake, I don't have a lot of the normal baking supplies that a baker would have. In order to cut out the belly, I found a plastic spray bottle cap to punch out a belly hole in the green Totoros. I also used the same cap to punch out the white belly, which I then inserted into the hole.

Frankly, a tiny circular cookie cutter would have been A LOT easier. The circular cut-out periodically got stuck inside the plastic cap, and I constantly found myself trying to pry it out with a chopstick. Overall, though, it made perfect circles that were just the right size for Totoro's belly.

Here they are, all ready to be baked! Before baking, I placed a large black sprinkle in the center as Totoro's nose (not pictured in this batch!).

Bake for about 10-15 minutes, or until the edge of the ears (the thinnest part!) start to brown. Though the cookies taste better when they are slightly browned, they look better if they are not browned because the ears stay green.

At this point, I was really wishing I had bought some candy eyes.  Since I had not, I melted some white chocolate chips over a boiling water bath. I then gingerly used a chopstick to dip tiny eyes onto each Totoro. Using tweezers, I put a black nonpareil on each chocolate piece as the eyeball. As a last step, I melted chocolate chips in the microwave and used a sharp object (toothpick is perfect), to "paint" his little belly markings.

It's painstakingly slow and takes a ton of patience, but the results are so worth it!
Aren't they super cute?

As a participating blogger in the Cookies for Kids' Cancer cookie exchange, I received a bunch of GLAD containers in which to give my lovely cookies away! They also sent other awesome baking supplies, such as a gorgeous nonstick cookie sheet (I don't own one, so I was thrilled!), various holiday themed cookie cutters and decorative elements, as well as other cool baking tools (frosting deco pen anyone?).

Having all this cool baking stuff makes me want to try my hand at baking some more!

I hosted the exchange at my house over Thanksgiving (where we also enjoyed lots of other yummy food). I sent my sister's family home with a GLAD container full of Totoros and Keroppis. In exchange, I was rewarded with these lovely whole wheat chocolate chip cookies.

If you want to help GLAD raise money for GLAD will donate $.10 to Cookies for Kids' Cancer for each virtual cookie sold, exchanged or given this November and December 2011 – up to $100,000! Check out their website here for more details.

Enjoy!



Totoro Green Tea (Matcha) Cookies
dry ingredients
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

wet ingredients
20 T (2 1/2 sticks) butter (softened!)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 T milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 T matcha powder

1. whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar on medium speed until well blended. Add egg, milk, and vanilla to the "wet ingredients" bowl. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients until everything is well blended and smooth.

3. Divide the dough in two sections, with one section roughly twice as large as the other section. Mix in matcha powder into the larger section. Place each section between two sheets of parchment or wax paper and roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch thickness. Refrigerate until cold, at least 30 minutes.

4. Position oven rack to the center and preheat oven to 375. Grease cookie sheets if they are not nonstick!

5. Peel away the wax paper for one portion and put the dough between fresh sheets of wax paper. [Note, since this is a labor intensive cookie, I would cut the chilled dough in half and leave the other half in the refrigerator until you are ready to cut that one too. The dough becomes harder to handle once it's warm]

6. Cut the cookies with a cookie cutter. Roll the dough scraps together and continue cutting out cookies. If it gets too soft, just re-roll it out, chill in the refrigerator, and cut once it's cold.

7. Make Totoros according to the detailed instructions above. Decorate accordingly.

8. Bake until cookies are slightly golden brown at the edges, around 10-15 minutes depending on how large the cookie is.

 

Keroppi Cookies

This post is part of a larger series: An Asian Twist on a Traditional Holiday Meal. Other posts in this series include Chinese Oven Roasted Duck, and Totoro Cookies.

I was obsessed with Keroppi when I was in school.

I loved going to Sanrio stores to see what cool new Keroppi stuff I could buy. My sister and I owned dozens of plush green Keroppis, along with T-shirts, totes, pens, notebooks, etc.

When Bryan first met me in college, he even told me I looked like Keroppi because of the huge glasses that I wore at the time. Hmm . . . looking back, was that really a compliment?

Sadly, Keroppi seems to have fallen out of favor these days. Hello Kitty, who is actually older than Keroppi, is still going strong as ever.  Keroppi, on the other hand, can hardly be found. These days I'm thrilled if I even see one or two Keroppi items in the Sanrio stores.

As a nod to those characters we loved as kids, I decided to bake Keroppi cookies for the GLAD Cookies for Kids Cancer cookie exchange, offered by Foodbuzz's Tastemakers Program.



Keroppi is green, so a matcha (green tea powder) seemed like the perfect type of cookie to make.

Matcha is finely milled green tea often used in sweets such as green tea flavored ice cream, cakes, and cookies. Because matcha is made from high quality tea buds and requires more time for grinding, it is usually more expensive than other teas. For example, the little 1.0 oz tin that I bought costs $12.
I took a simple butter cookie recipe from The Joy of Cooking (my go-to basics book!) and modified it by adding matcha (Thanks Talida for the inspiration!).
Similar to the Totoros, you also need two "colors" of dough - a green tea matcha one and a plain white one.

If you have concentric circular cookie cutters, you should be able to make these Keroppis pretty easily by picking out the right sizes. Since I didn't have any of that, I used portions of random cookie cutters I had in order to cut out a rough circle. I used a spray bottle cap to cut out white eye balls as well as cut out half-circles from the green dough. Keroppi is not exactly round, so I usually reshape each one by hand a bit to get it to the right shape.

All assembled!

Using black round sprinkles or nonpareils, place one at the center of each eye ball. You can use tweezers if necessary.

Using something small and flat, make indentations to draw out the characteristic V-shaped mouth. Of course, feel free to give Keroppi any sort of expression you desire. I made just one of my Keroppis sad - can you find him?

Finally, add a tiny bit of red food coloring to a tiny piece of cookie dough. Roll tiny little pink balls and manually pressed them onto each Keroppi. 
Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cookies seem to be done and let cool on a wire rack. I did not want the Keroppi cookies to brown (since I didn't think it would look good if their eye balls were singed), so I took the cookies out a bit earlier to ensure they would stay green.
Hee hee, aren't they cute?

These were a lot easier to make than the Totoros, maybe because I didn't have to make such small eyes!

I hosted the cookie exchange at my house over Thanksgiving (where we also enjoyed lots of other yummy food). I sent my sister's family home with a GLAD container full of Totoros and Keroppis. In exchange, I was rewarded with lovely whole wheat chocolate chip cookies.

If you want to help GLAD raise money for GLAD will donate $.10 to Cookies for Kids' Cancer for each virtual cookie sold, exchanged or given this November and December 2011 – up to $100,000! Check out their website here for more details.

Enjoy!

Keroppi Green Tea (Matcha) Cookies
dry ingredients
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

wet ingredients
20 T (2 1/2 sticks) butter (softened!)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 T milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 T matcha powder

1. whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar on medium speed until well blended. Add egg, milk, and vanilla to the "wet ingredients" bowl. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients until everything is well blended and smooth.

3. Divide the dough in two sections, with one section roughly twice as large as the other section. Mix in matcha powder into the larger section. Place each section between two sheets of parchment or wax paper and roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch thickness. Refrigerate until cold, at least 30 minutes.

4. Position oven rack to the center and preheat oven to 375. Grease cookie sheets if they are not nonstick!

5. Peel away the wax paper for one portion and put the dough between fresh sheets of wax paper. [Note, since this is a labor intensive cookie, I would cut the chilled dough in half and leave the other half in the refrigerator until you are ready to cut that one too. The dough becomes harder to handle once it's warm]

6. Cut the cookies with a cookie cutter. Roll the dough scraps together and continue cutting out cookies. If it gets too soft, just re-roll it out, chill in the refrigerator, and cut once it's cold.

7. Make Keroppis according to the detailed instructions above. Decorate accordingly.

8. Bake until cookies are just done, around 10 minutes depending on how large the cookie is. Try to avoid any browning of the edges, since it won't look very good.