Cookie Dough Snack Bars

Before shutting down the chocolate factory for summer, I decided to make chocolate bars again. More than a year ago, I made a layered bar with a walnut shortbread cookie and walnut gianduja enrobed in dark chocolate. The flavour was spot on, but I erred in the construction. You see, I baked the cookie layer in a silicone mold and then piped the gianduja on top, but when they were turned out and enrobed, the cookie was on the top instead on the bottom where it should be (or at least where I wanted it to be). Because the mold has slightly rounded cavities, I couldn't just turn the bars upside down to change the orientation (the bar would have a flat top and curved bottom). Well, I suppose I could have and called it avant-garde, but I didn't. And so Take 2. 

Using the same bar mold, I decided to make a chocolate chip cookie layer topped with dark chocolate ganache. After flipping through my chocolate library, I found a recipe for "American cookie dough" bars in Callebaut's 600-page book titled The Chocolatier's Kitchen. It was relatively easy and made just enough to fill the 30-cavity mold I was working with. The recipe was a little strange, though, in its measurements (32.2 grams of egg, for example). I also have no idea how one could possibly pipe the cookie dough into the mold as directed because it was a very thick paste. Nevertheless, nine minutes in the oven and step one was complete. 

Two days later, I made the second layer of the bar. While the Callebaut recipe suggested a vanilla buttercream layer that was fondant based, I decided to instead make a traditional dark chocolate ganache. The recipe I chose was one for slabbing, which I hoped would be firm enough to enable enrobing. When the ganache was prepared, I carefully removed each cookie from the silicone mold. Then I piped ganache into each cavity, filling them about half full. Finally, I inverted the cookies and gently pushed them down into the ganache. Ha! Now the cookies would be on the bottom! Pleased with myself (perhaps overly), I left the ganache to crystallize for 24 hours.

In fact, it was more like 48 hours before I got back to enrobe the bars -- but who's counting? Before beginning, however, I decided to try a technique from my chocolatier training to make it easier to enrobe the bars. Adding a chablon to the bottom of the cookie -- at least in theory -- would ensure the bottom of the bar was fully covered in chocolate (instead of having marks left by the dipping fork) and should result in the bar more easily siding off the dipping fork. I tempered a small amount of chocolate and with a pastry brush painted chocolate across the chocolate chip cookies. (I could have used an offset spatula or some other implement, but this seemed to be the easiest option at the time.)

Once the chablon was in place, I tempered my chocolate for enrobing. Now, it was here that things started to go ever so slightly off the rails -- on a few fronts. When I popped my bars out of the mold, some of the ganache was a little too soft and didn't release cleanly. This occurred in about 20% of the bars, but really was only noticeable in 10% of the finished bars. Thankfully, by dropping them ganache side down into the chocolate and then flipping them with the fork, it wasn't problematic (the fork was on the firm, cookie side of the bar). I also didn't temper enough chocolate the first time and so had to do that process twice. Slightly annoying, but it probably only added about ten minutes to the process.

Where things went very right was in the ease with which the bars slid off the dipping fork onto the wax paper lined tray. Incredible. No sticking. No fighting with the bar trying to get it off the fork. No need for a knife to push the bar off the fork. Just a smooth, controlled slide off the fork. The extra time and effort was definitely worth it. As each one came off the fork, I used the tines to decorate the top of the previous bar. As a result, a much higher proportion of the bars were of a quality I am willing to share. 

While the chocolate crystallized, I decided to try one of the few ugly ducklings with a cup of coffee. To my surprise, the cookie layer really did give the flavour and texture of chocolate chip cookie dough. The short baking time was long enough to make them safe for consumption and short enough to give the appearance of unbaked dough. The chocolate ganache layer, which was indeed softer than I'd anticipated, was a delicious pairing. Definitely an excellent flavour combination. 

A few hours later, I wrapped the bars in foil and applied a label. The astute among you will notice that this is a new design. More on that when next we meet... 

But for now, I have a box of chocolate bars to bring home with me and the factory is closed for the summer.