Nibby Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies: #Choctoberfest

These Nibby Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies are easy, sophisticated and not too sweet, with a hint of salt to complement the chocolate goodness. And because they are slice and bake, they are perfect for making ahead for your holiday cookie tray. I am participating in Choctoberfest, which is basically a weeklong smorgasbord of chocolate recipes from bloggers you love. Keep scrolling to the recipe for these cookies! Affiliate links have been used in this post to link to items I am discussing.

Has anyone else noticed that chocolatiers release great cookbooks? Between you and me, I use whatever chocolate I have handy or that I prefer, but I have found so many great recipes in these cookbooks. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook for example. A recipe coming soon inspired by the Guittard Chocolate Cookbook. I am still hemming and hawing and drooling over Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook. Anyway, what does this have to do with anything, except of course our theme of chocolate? These cookies started with a recipe I found in Theo Chocolate: Recipes & Sweet Secrets from Seattle’s Favorite Chocolate Maker Featuring 75 Recipes Both Sweet & Savory.

The recipe I started with focused on almonds. It had chopped chocolate in it, but the logs were rolled in almonds and the dough called for almond extract (which I hate even though I love almonds). I was instantly intrigued because of the olive oil and because I love slice and bake cookies this time of year. Bake off a few, photograph them, and then save the rest for my holiday cookie tray! A food blogger’s dream cookie! But I wanted something more chocolate and less almond. So I pulled a common trick out of my book–use cacao nibs in place of the nuts (I did still use ground almond meal in the dough). Cacao nibs have a sophisticated bitter quality–that becomes bittersweet when combined with sugar–that I find irresistible in desserts. Because of the additional bitter, I used half 70% cacao bittersweet chopped chocolate and half 34% cacao milk chocolate chopped, in the dough. A sprinkle of flaky sea salt finishes the cookies.

Everyone loved these Nibby Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies. Even Alex’s friend who had spent the night–I was worried the nibs and the sea salt might be too outside of her experience but she gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. Now keep reading to hear more about Choctoberfest and find the recipe at the bottom of the post! Below that find links to see what everyone else made for Choctoberfest!

#Choctoberfest is a virtual event put together by The PinterTest Kitchen.** Bloggers from around the world will be posting their favorite chocolate recipes, and you’ll get a chance to win some awesome prizes. What’s not to love?

#Choctoberfest would not be possible without our sponsors, starting with our 2015 Gold Sponsor, Imperial Sugar. You can find Imperial Sugar on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more. Make sure you visit the recipes section of their website for some sweet inspiration. Imperial Sugar and our other sponsors have banded together to contribute some awesome prizes for our #Choctoberfest giveaway! Check it out!:

• My First Cookbook and granulated sugar from Imperial Sugar
• Chocolate Mint Essential Woman Omega Swirl and Chocolate Silk Greens from Barlean’s
• Chocolate bars (dark, milk, and white) from Lindt Chocolate
• Hemp seed prize pack (hulled hemp seed, toasted hemp seed, hemp seed oil, and hemp protein powder) from Just Hemp Foods
• Divine Chocolate gift set (15 flavors of chocolate bars!) from Divine Chocolate
• Dark chocolate caramels from Tahana Confections
• Vintage inspired gathering apron from Bless This Mess
• Lulu’s Lovepack (6 flavors of chocolate bars!) from Lulu’s Chocolate
• Pure Chocolate Lovers Supreme gift box from Pearson Farm

We also have a nonprofit sponsor this year – Rescue Chocolate! They make vegan chocolate treats and donate 100% of their proceeds to animal shelters.

The giveaway is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered!

A huge thank you to all of the other blogs participating in #Choctoberfest 2015. Check out their blogs throughout the week for chocolate recipes you won’t be able to resist: The PinterTest Kitchen • 2 Cookin’ Mamas • A Day in the Life on the Farm • Aloha Flavor • Amy’s Cooking Adventures • Angels Homestead • Balancing Motherhood • Bless this Mess • Busy-at-Home • Chocolate Slopes • Coconut & Lime • Colie’s Kitchen • Cookaholic Wife • Cooking In Stilettos • Cooking With Libby • Cookistry • CopyKat Recipes • Cravings of a Lunatic • Crumbs in my Mustachio • Culinary Couture • Cupcakes Take The Cake • Deliciously Savvy • Eat It & Say Yum • Fairyburger • Famished Fish, Finicky Shark • Farm Fresh Feasts • Food Hunter’s Guide to Cuisine • Full Belly Sisters • Get Off The Couch and Cook • Grumpy’s Honeybunch • Hey What’s for Dinner Mom? • Honey and Birch • I Can Cook That • Jane’s Adventures in Dinner • Jessie Weaver • Life on Food • Life, Love, and Good Food • Majorly Delicious • Moore or Less Cooking Food Blog • Mother Would Know • Or Whatever You Do • Poet in the Pantry • Recipes Food and Cooking • Rhubarb and Honey • Sassy Southern Yankee •  Seduction in The Kitchen • Serena Lissy • Sumptuous Spoonfuls • Take Two Tapas • That Skinny Chick Can Bake • ThatsSoYummy  • The Crumby Cupcake • The Dinner-Mom • The Saucy Southerner • The Spiced Life • The Spiffy Cookie • The Two Bite Club • The Weekday Gourmet • Vintage Kitty • Wendy Polisi • What A Girl Eats • WhitBit’s Indian Kitchen • Wit Wisdom & Food • Zesty South Indian Kitchen

5 from 1 vote

Print

Nibby Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

15 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

Note that this recipe requires chilling, so plan ahead! (Times listed do not include chilling time.)

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Cookies

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 1 cup (4.5 oz, 126 g) AP flour
• 2/3 cup (3 oz, 85 g) cake flour
• 1/2 cup (2 oz, 57 g) almond meal
• 1/2 t fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 T (1 1/4 sticks, 141 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 T extra virgin olive oil-- they recommend a fruity one; I used one I brought home from Tuscany
• 1/2 t vanilla paste
• 3/4 cup (3 1/3 oz, 95 g) confectioners' sugar, sifted to remove lumps
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 oz (28 g) good quality dark chocolate, chopped, I recommend 70% cacao
• 1 oz (28 g) good quality milk chocolate, minimum 30% cacao
• 1/2 cup cocoa nibs
• flaked sea salt for sprinkling (I used Maldon)

Instructions

1. Whisk together both flours, the almond meal, and the fine sea salt. Set aside.
2. Beat the butter in a stand mixer until creamy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and then drizzle the olive oil in while beating the butter. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl again, and then continue beating until the oil is incorporated into the butter.
3. Beat in the vanilla paste, and then beat in the sugar. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl again.
4. Beat in the egg yolk.
5. On the lowest speed, mix in the flour mixture. When it is mostly, but not all incorporated, add the chopped chocolates also and mix just until all flour is evenly incorporated and the chocolates are evenly distributed.
6. Roll into 2 logs, about 1-2 inches in diameter and about 8 inches long. Sprinkle the cacao nibs over the surface next to the logs and then roll the logs in the nibs. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap. Place in the fridge--or if you prefer to freeze ahead, wrap them in a second layer of extra strength foil and then place in the freezer.
7. Let chill for at least 2 hours--mine chilled overnight.
8. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 F.
9. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
10. Slice the log into 1/4-inch slices, and place them on the cookie sheet 1 inch apart (I got 20 cookies to a sheet). Re-wrap the remaining log and place back into the fridge until you are ready to slice and bake it.
11. Sprinkle the cookies with a little flaky sea salt.
12. Bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes. These cookies will burn easily, so pay attention to them and take them out as soon as their edges start to turn golden.
13. Let cool for 1-2 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Check out what everyone else has made:  “

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And for the collage fans:

**Choctoberfest is a sponsored event in that the organizer (The Pintertest Kitchen) and some others have been paid for organizing and promoting, and some others still have received product, but The Spiced Life has received nothing and this post is not sponsored.