I delayed publishing this recipe to you a bit (it was supposed to be on Sunday but a big wave of laziness got the better of me). In the end it was just as well that I published it yesterday because it was apparently World Cookie Day! So my chocolate cookies, macadamia nuts and galabé were very much on point. Except that when I went to click "publish" I realized I'd been hacked, impossible to access the blog... So I'm behind again. Nothing dramatic but it took me time to sort everything out and there may be some glitches in the coming days.
I'm aware that this recipe will be a little frustrating for all mainland readers but it should please my Reunion friends and readers. It will indeed be difficult for non-residents of #974 to find the necessary ingredients.
You may have already heard of galabé, this typically Reunion sugar. It's starting to gain recognition but it's still very rare and quite expensive. That's normal, there's only a small factory that makes it on the island. It's made from dried sugarcane syrup and it's absolutely killer.
I discovered it by visiting the Savanna distillery and the Bois Rouge sugar factory during my stay in Reunion last summer. I who am otherwise a big rum lover (yes, yes, I know the abuse of which is dangerous...), I was especially won over by these little cubes with their nice sugarcane taste. What's funny is that galabé had disappeared from store shelves while it was kids' favorite candy 20 years ago.
It took a few great chefs (Pierre Gagnaire, Pascal Barbot, Alain Passard, Stéphane Jego, Alain Ducasse, Anne-Sophie Pic, Yannick Alléno, Stéphane Jego to name just a few) to put this very special sugar back in the spotlight.
I felt particularly lucky to bake with a sugar of this quality, especially since it brought back memories of my very nice trip to Reunion. But since we're not here for a slide show evening, let's get down to business.
I hesitated for a long time before designing my recipe. Indeed, since the product is quite little known, there are almost no recipes available to draw inspiration from. I opted for cookies and even if it was very good, I think we can do even better to highlight the product.
I used my favorite cookie recipe as a base and adapted it to my filling. I hadn't realized that galabé would add sugar (yes, I'm not always sharp ^^) especially since I took the opportunity to replace the vanilla flavor with Lacuite syrup (the liquid version of sugarcane sugar). So my recipe was a bit sweet, but I'm correcting the ingredients so yours will be perfect. You'll see that the contrast between 70% dark chocolate and galabé is really pleasant.
I refer you to my article on classic cookies to (re)familiarize yourself with my tips for having nice "chewy" cookies (soft in the middle).
I think next time I'll try galabé simply sprinkled on waffles. More to come...
