Another food post: Girl Crack Cookies!
Cookie-making season is in full swing! And I’m up to my ears. The library Christmas party is tomorrow, and I volunteered to bake cookies. I have no idea how many people work there, so I figured I should make two batches. And since I’m making two batches, why not make two different types of cookies? Yes! The original plan was to make a big batch of gingerbread mustaches, but I settled on ginger cookies (that’ll be my next post) and chocolate truffle cookies that I call Girl Crack Cookies because they’re ridiculously chocolatey. Somehow, I’m not a huge fan of them – maybe because they’re really intense, so you should eat them slowly, and I tend to cram cookies into my mouth like I haven’t eaten in a month – but I cook them for others on special occasions. Another perk: one batch makes a helluva lot of cookies. Seriously. A lot of cookies.
So! On to the makings.
First, do yourself a favor and gather your ingredients so you’re sure you have everything. Here’s what you need:
Next, melt the chocolate and butter. I use a makeshift double-boiler made out of a saucepan and a heatproof bowl. Simmer (don’t boil!) the water in the saucepan, and let the chocolate melt down slowly, stirring occasionally.
Next, use a stand mixer to whip the eggs and sugar until they’re thick and pale. As a default, whenever I’m told to do something with sugar (it usually involves butter), I turn the mixer to 6 and start a timer for 3 minutes. It worked:
After that, it’s time to our in the vanilla and melted chocolate. Yum!
Once that’s all nice and mixed, whisk together your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, then pour it into the mixer with the wet ingredients, and get everything nice and integrated. Then, add even more chocolate. Mhm hmm.
Stir that up, cover up your bowl, and pop it into the fridge for at least an hour. This dough isn’t quite as bad as the gingerbread dough, but it’s pretty hard to deal with when it’s not cold.
Once the hour is up, pull it out, and put small balls onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. I like these cookies to be small, so I use a small cookie dropper, which you can find in kitchen stores and, when you’re really lucky (which I wasn’t yesterday) Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
Stick ‘em in the oven for about ten minutes, and you have lots of soft, intensely chocolate cookies. They’re not for the faint of heart!
Here’s the Official Recipe, which I adapted slightly from one on AllRecipes:
Girl Crack Cookies!
Ingredients:
- 4 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, broken up a bit
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
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1. In a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt unsweetened chocolate, 1 cup of the chocolate chips, and the butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
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2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, whip eggs and sugar until thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and the chocolate mixture until well mixed. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; gradually stir into the chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining 1 cup chocolate chips. Cover dough and chill for at least an hour or overnight.
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3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Roll chilled dough into 1 inch balls using an ice cream scoop. Place on ungreased cookie sheets so they are 2 inches apart.
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4. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. They’ll be crackly on the top but still very soft. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
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