Chocolate and Licorice spirited baked goods - Dec. 31, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Licorice chocolate cupcakes + cookies

Welcome to the final day (Day #8) of Spirited Chocolate Theme Week.

Today, the last day of 2016, we're going off-track a bit, by making some homemade licorice chocolate cookies and cupcakes, with at least three different chocolate ingredients and some added flavors.

What spirit infused today's baked goods? I tried to decide whether to use Ouzo or Pastis liqueur to flavor today's (gluten-free) chocolate cookies and cupcakes. I decided to use a little of both.

I used chopped bits of a left-over licorice chocolate bar to enhance the licorice flavor, and added some dried, crushed fresh fennel and bits of tangerine peel.

I thought they were wonderful, but I tend to like all Mediterranean-leaning flavor combinations. Even if you don't like licorice, you might want to give these a try.

The small, thin cookies were slightly crunchy around the edges and slightly moist and cake-like in the middle.

The cupcakes were moist and full of chocolate, licorice, fennel, citrus flavors.