chocolate – Economist Writing Every Day

For decades, our family favorite holiday cookie recipe has been a hearty ginger cookie containing, among other things, wheat germ. The original recipe author claimed that these cookies “got my family through Alaskan winters”. That’s hard core.

With my family’s help, I made big batches for decades to hand out among colleagues at work. This always included my boss and boss’s boss, and their admins. (Cynics may think what they wish of my motives there.) Also, we like to hand out small, decorated bags of cookies to all our neighbors for several houses in all directions. We like to try to build community as we can, and this is often the only time we get to exchange words with some neighbors.

However, there are two downsides to that ginger cookie. First, it is very labor-intensive. The final mixing with a stiff dough takes a lot of muscle, and forming the cookies takes an assembly line with multiple steps: with the help of a spoon, form the sticky dough into a ball, then roll the ball in sugar, then place on baking tray, then press a blanched almond (can only find these in specialty vendors these days) into the top of the ball. Second, this ginger cookie is a bit on the dry side – – I would usually recommend consuming them with coffee or milk as I handed them out.

Two years ago, however, an esteemed family member pointed me to a radically different recipe, for an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. That seemed kind of decadent compared to my old favorite, but worth a try. It solved the two drawbacks for the ginger cookies. Making it is easy, just scoop into the dough and plop onto the cookie sheet. (I did buy a cookie scoop for this). And there was no need to apologize for dryness. These babies are just plain delicious. So now I make large batches of these cookies to hand out to neighbors at Christmas.

Without further ado, here is a link to the recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, by Sally McKenney of Sally’s Baking Addition. You do have to follow the directions, including the step of creaming the butter (see links in recipe for what “room temperature” means) and sugar, and using old-fashioned (not instant) oatmeal.

Here are some of my tweaks to this recipe:

Make two double batches, in two separate large bowls. Chill in fridge several hours. Set aside several hours to bake them all.

Don’t bother creaming butter alone. Just add sugars to butter and stir in with wood spoon, then beaters. Add flour, using spoon and then beaters. For adding oats, chips, etc., just use spoon.

I backed out some of the chocolate chips, and added chopped walnuts: so, in each double batch I have total 3 c choc chips (e.g. 2.25 c regular chips, ¾ c mini chips), plus 1 c chopped walnuts. It’s worth getting good chocolate chips. Ghirardelli seems to be the best chocolate chip. Guittard also gets raves.

The recipe calls for big cookies (a full, large scoop, about 3 Tbsp), but those may spread too much, and I want more cookies, so I use about ¾ full large scoop.

Bake at 355 F instead of 350 F, to speed it up a bit. (My oven is wimpy, electric). Parchment paper works well to keep cookies from sticking.

Enjoy!

I write about various topics, usually with at least some loose connection to economics. Sometimes these are fairly macro issues, other times there are specific, actionable observations. For instance, back in March of 2021, we inferred from the critical shortages of semiconductors that car manufacturing would be severely crimped, likely leading to big price increases in cars. Our post “Chip Shortages Shutting Down Auto Assembly Lines; Buy Your Car Now Or Else” came out just in time (red arrow below) to alert the readership here:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SETA02 – – Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Used Cars and Trucks in U.S. City Average

Chocolate Prices

But now, a price increase of more ubiquitous import looms. Most of us were not in the market for cars in March of 2021, but some 81% of us eat chocolate, with the average American consuming about 9.5 pounds a year. Indeed, 50% “cannot live without it every day.”

And so, it is with a heavy heart that I bring warning of a rise in the price of chocolate. Back in pandemic lockdown, I was bored and speculated a few bucks in cocoa futures, as tracked by the NIB exchange traded fund. My shares went up, and then down, and I sold out to limit losses (which was a good move at the time), and moved onto other investments.

Imagine my surprise when I randomly checked on NIB this week and saw the price ramp-up in the past few months:

Source: Seeking Alpha

A quick internet search led to a CNBC article which confirmed my worst fears:

“The cocoa market has experienced a remarkable surge in prices … This season marks the second consecutive deficit, with cocoa ending stocks expected to dwindle to unusually low levels,” S&P Global Commodity Insights’ Principal Research Analyst Sergey Chetvertakov told CNBC in an email.

…Chetvertakov added that the arrival of the El Niño weather phenomenon is forecast to bring lower than average rainfall and powerful Harmattan winds to West Africa where cocoa is largely grown. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana account for more than 60% of the world’s cocoa production.

The price of cocoa will feed into the price of consumer chocolate products, especially dark chocolate which has more actual cocoa content. And the price of sweets generally will rise on the back of sugar prices, which stand at 11-year highs, driven again largely by weather.

There is still time to stock up ahead of the hoarders…