Lately life has been a little tough around here. I’ve been thinking a lot about Forgiveness and Empathy. As a creative person, I’ve been looking for expressive ways to heal. Naturally I’ve turned to baking and what better thing to bake than a cookie known as the “World Peace Cookie”?
So, without going into further detail, let me introduce you to my new favorite cookie:
Dorie Greenspan’s Korova Cookie (a.k.a. World Peace Cookies).
I’ve been eying this recipe for a long time and with the abundance of cakes and other confections I’ve been making lately, I’ve really begun to miss cookies! Sweet simple, grab by the handful, delicious, youthful… cookies!
These cookies are best described as a chocolate shortbread with chocolate chunks and a delightfully surprising touch of fine sea salt.
Not only are these my new favorite cookie, I have to admit, this is my new favorite cookie dough as well! 
Korova Cookies (aka World Peace Cookies)
From Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 Tbs) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips (I use Organic, Fair-Trade)
1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.
2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.
3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.
4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)
Getting Ready to Bake:
5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.
7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.
I did have just a bit of trouble slicing my cookies since I used regular sized chocolate chips rather than mini ones. I definitely recommend using the mini chips, or better yet, chopped chocolate.
This is my first official submission to Blake Bakes, a new baking blog I am honored to be a part of. My previous submission, Coconut Cookies, can be found here on Blake Makes. Enjoy!
Filed under: Blake Bakes, Cookies/Bars, Sweet Treats
I’ve made these a few times, and every time it seems like half the cookie dough gets eaten without being baked. Seriously good cookies.
Those look sinfully delicious! I wish I lived near you, i’d be sampling all your goodies. Well that amongst other things lol
Can’t wait to try these!!
Chocolate shortbread and fleur de sel??? How quickly can I fire up my oven?!!
these look delicious! i wonder how they got their name though. perhaps if you give them everyone no one would have anything to fight about anymore?
OMG Carrie! these look sinful! I so wanna grab a few of these right now!!
btw, I’d like to invite you to participat ein the Healthy Cooking contest that I’m hosting on my blog! do thake a minute to check it out:)
These were the first (and only) thing I made out of Dorie’s book before joining TWD. I agree, they are delish!
(and I’m with you on cookies. I wish someone would pick some plain old cookies on TWD, lol)
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I just made these cookies – and it seems like they have too much butter in them or something – and I don’t think they are that good
am I doing something wrong?
tawnee~ It’s tough to say. Are you certain you put the correct amount of butter in? They have much less butter in them than most other shortbread-like recipes I’ve seen… I don’t think they taste too buttery. Perhaps you measured wrong. Or maybe you just don’t like them!
I think it would be worth trying again.
[...] These are my favorite cookie. They are one of the few cookies I’ve had where the cookie itself is as tasty as the raw dough (IMO)! I’ve recently tried a couple of things to switch ‘em up. A couple of months ago I added some nibs to the dough. While I enjoyed the taste, the texture was a bit like having eggshells in the dough (note this is an eggless cookie). [...]