Weekend Baking With Shogun: A Sweet Spicy 3-Way!

Did I do the clickbait right? You’re here so I’m guessing the answer is yes. Good on ya, I knew I liked you.

By the time you see this, I will likely be somewhere in the process of digging out from a storm. About a foot, no biggie as long as it’s the light powdery stuff. Unless mercifully it just passes by causing our weatherpeople many deep-hued blueballs, which I’m all in favor of. However these days that’s rare as the stations round here spend more on weather prediction tech than many countries GDP’s. So bring it on. Not much I can do about the weather, it is winter. What I can control though is what I choose to eat to get me through.

Winter brings with it holidays. As I survey the gastronomical landscape of the season and the holiday gatherings we’re all likely to attend, I find it kinda bland or samey. Turkey, ham, roasts of meat and vegetables, potatoes of all sorts with gravies, creamy soups, and so on. Sure they’re comforting, satisfying, even triggering pleasant memories of times gone by. It sticks to your insides, makes you feel all cozy. Hell I’m getting drowsy just typing this and looking ahead. But do any of these things really have what you’d call strong or bold flavors? Eh…probably not so much. We need something…more. We need…

Yes! Zazz. Now I’m not here to toss card tables over and cause inter-familial bloodshed over main dishes or sides. You don’t need my help with that. What I can do is help add a little spice to the sweets, the last thing that will stick with you and yours. What’s a little potential passive-aggressive heartburn among friends, family, and co-workers? Today I’ve got 3 cookies all with their own individual zazz profile. Also rejoice chocoholics, I bring thee absolution to make your foodhole whole! I know for a fact we have more than a few worshipers of the spice and heat within our ranks, and it is for them that I submit these. And even if you’re not I say you give them a shot. Don’t let the season make everything go numb. Get some tingle in your dingles!

Sriracha Chocolate Chip

  • 1/2 cup soft dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup veg/canola, not olive whatthehelliswrongwithyou, oil (see below though)
  • sriracha
    • 3 tbsp → standard spiciness
    • 3.5 tbsp → a bit of a kick
    • 4 tbsp → quite spicy
  • 1.1/3 cup plain white flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp corn starch
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
  • 1 to 3 tbsp milk (might not need it)
  • Oil: I have generally found 1/2 cup oil is too much in combination with the oil in sriracha (especially if you use 4 tbsp instead of 3). Instead, I recommend using:
    • 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce  OR
    • 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup yogurt (plain or vanilla I suppose)

These are both pretty standard fat-reducing substitutions, so you can also apply this tip to other recipes.

Preheat oven to 350°F and line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the sugars. Add in your desired amount of sriracha, and any oil substitutions. Add in oil slowly, creaming together with sugars while making sure there is not too much oil; you will probably not end up wanting the full 1/2 cup.

In a larger or equal-sized bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, corn starch, and baking soda.

Stir the wet sugar mixture into the dry mixture, then fold in chocolate chips. YES ORDER MATTERS. If you like sanity anyway. If mixture is crumbly, add in milk 1 tbsp at a time. I have never needed it.

(optional/time permitting) Chill the dough. This will help with shaping it into nice spherical balls, and keep it from sticking to your hands too much.

Scoop balls of dough and flatten on sheet. The oilier the dough, the smaller and/or more spread out the cookies should be (and the flatter they will end up). Think walnut-sized.

Bake 10-12 minutes until the tops have started to crack. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Ginger Chocolate

  • 1 cup + maybe 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • pinch salt
  • 1 stick butter, softened
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • ⅓ cup brown sugar, packed
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • ¾ cup dark chocolate (1 o’ them fancy big bars will do it)
  • ¼-1/2 cup candied ginger, chopped*

To candy ginger, go to the store and buy it. Oh sure you could diy. You could also individually pluck every hair from your groin. But it’s highly unlikely you want to do either. Just go buy some.

Heat the oven to 375 F.

Cream butter and sugars together.

Add egg, vanilla and mix.

Slowly mix in dry ingredients.

Fold in chocolate chunks and chopped candied ginger.

Scoop into rounded 1 tablespoon balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until set in the middle – they should hardly be brown.

Leave on the tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Krampus Diablos

  • 1½ cups sifted all purpose flour
  • 1 cup sifted cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • ½ cup canola/veg oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tablespoons fresh squeezed ginger juice or fresh grated ginger root
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • Kosher/Sea salt for sprinkling

Heat the oven to 375 F.

Mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, and pepper in a large bowl. Stir in chocolate chips.

In another bowl, whisk brown sugar, white sugar, canola oil, eggs, ginger and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir.

On greased cookie sheet, press small (these guys WILL spread out, see below) handful sized cookie dough balls out and sprinkle with rock salt. Bake approximately 11 mins or until the cookie starts to crack.

What’s it all look like? Well…

Sriracha, Ginger, Krampus Diabolo

So there you go. Give them a shot, I know at least one of them will work for you. These will be waiting for me when I come back in from snow-clearing and they’ll be just the thing to defrost my head and melt the ice off my beard. Frost Jesus is not a good long-term look. Ask Jasper. The best to you and yours. Stay alive, I prefer you that way.

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Shogun Marcus
Resides in a state of arrested development on the Midwest Coast. Other than his wife, has little use for most humans. He's never slept more than 3 consecutive hours. The voices won't allow him rest so he types them out to help authorities understand why. Why what? You'll know…one day.
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Senor Weaselo
entropy

The Krampus Diablo sounds amazing.

Horatio Cornblower

I’m going to use if for next year’s fantasy football team name.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

I’m going to use it to describe my GF’s time of the month.

Unsurprised

COOKIES!

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JustStopDude

JSD Holiday Status Update….

No murder suicides yet. I got the drywall done. My father started freaking out that the drywall itself did not match the existing wall color.

These walls have not been painted since 1950 or so. I pretty much gave up trying to explain what I was doing. When I picked up the drywall, I grabbed a shit load of color sheets and gave them to my mom and told her to pick the paint colors.

“Can’t you just match it?”

“Mom…I got to basically seal in the lead paint. And I KNOW you HATE the colors in this house. You never have gotten to pick paint colors before…so pick them”

“Ask your father”

I turn to my old man, and I show him a color with the name covered.

“Dad…what color is this?”

“I can’t see the name”

“Okay Mom….this is why you are picking the color. Dad is color blind. His opinion doesn’t matter”

“This is MY HOUSE SON! IF I AM PAYING FOR…”

“Dad…shut up. I love you but no. And you ain’t paying for shit”

/head gets smack by my dad
“No swearing! And I’ve already paid for everything. How much more is this going to cost?”

“$5 a gallon. I need two gallons per room….four rooms…so $20.”

“This better be worth it!”

So far my old man thinks this whole home rehab is costing about $300. Who wants to bet when my sister shows up, she is going to spill the fucking beans and get me in trouble?

Unsurprised

Should’ve gotten Mexicans to do it for a suitcase of Bud Light.

ballsofsteelandfury

So much this

The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

Wall-Candy Gray

JustStopDude

Ugh this just got more expensive. So my mom is looking at the colors. I tell her to pick three colors per room and we will narrow it down. I go to the store and pick up small sample bottles. I take to the room and we start just making squares so my mom can see them.

My father inputs that I don’t nearly have enough paint to do the rooms. Again…I’ve given up trying to explain concepts to my dad.

My mother finds a color she likes but she is afraid she will get sick of all the rooms the same color….

“MA…pick all the colors you want. None of these rooms will be the same color if you don’t want it to. Heck, a room can have multiple colors. Whatever you want.”

My mom’s face just lights up. My dad yells at me for swearing.

She finds a color she likes but she keeps putting it aside. I ask her what is up.

“It’s nothing”

“Ma….come on…what is it”

“It’s a good color for the kitchen”

“Alright…the kitchen gets done too. Add the color to the list”

“No! You can’t do the kitchen. I have to start cooking Christmas diner soon”

I’m totally confused until I get my mom to open up that her stove only has one working burner and the oven tops out at like 325f. So my mom has to like plan out big meals weeks ahead of time.

“Okay ma….we are going to the kitchen. I’m going to make some measurements and take some photos. First thing tomorrow, the three of us are going to a store. I swear on my life Pop, you give me or Mom any grief about this, I am shoving you I to a home.”

By the time I leave this house, I think my parents will have a new damn house….

Horatio Cornblower

This is funny because we just found out that my mother’s dryer has been broken for quite a while and she’s been going to a laundromat to dry her clothes. We said we’d get her a new one and she does the Mom bit “Oh I don’t have much laundry and it’s really no trouble and…” at which point I cut in with “That’s great but I mind that my mother is wandering around town with wet laundry so shut up, you’re getting a dryer.”

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Horatio Cornblower

I have no idea Officer, they were all wearing masks…

Unsurprised

Store Lizard: “They all looked alike.”

Police: “Got it. African-Americans.”

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

THIS GUY RIKKI-TIKKI-DEADLY I CALL HIM JOE FLACCO CAUSE HE SPENT HIS MORNING DARNING AFTER GETTING A RIP IN HIS SHIRT.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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