I brought along some chocolate chocolate-chip cookies to the Independence Day party on Sunday and I thought I’d share the recipe here. Back when I first received the Evite to the party, I noticed the request for desserts and side dishes and I immediately began to ponder what I could bake.
Being the chocolate nut that I am, I decided fairly early on to go with something chocolate-based, but it was only after watching some TiVod episodes of America’s Test Kitchen that I happened upon the idea of chocolate chocolate-chip cookies. (For those not aware, America’s Test Kitchen is a cooking show on PBS which goes through dozens of iterations for each dish before publishing the recipe that works best).
Fortunately, their recipes are also online (for the recent couple seasons, anyway). And, while the as-televised recipe is for Double-Choclate Cookies, their site also lists a varation which I could not ignore: Triple-Chocolate Cookies. For those keeping score, the double chocolate cookies include Dutch-processed cocoa along with a pound of melted bittersweet chocolate. The triple chocolate cookies include those ingredients plus chocolate chips. Well, on to the recipe:
Double-Chocolate Cookies, Thick and Chewy Cookies
Makes about 3 ½ dozen cookies
To melt the chocolate in a microwave, heat it at 50 percent power for 2 minutes, stir it, then continue heating it at 50 percent power for 1 more minute. If it’s not completely melted, heat it for an another 30 to 45 seconds at 50 percent power. We recommend using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop to scoop the dough. Resist the urge to bake the cookies longer than indicated; they may appear underbaked at first, but they’ll firm up as they cool.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (10 ounces / 284 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (56 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
Some—but not all—supermarkets carry Dutch-processed cocoa. If your local supermarket doesn’t have it, one place where you can definitely find it is at Penzeys Spices, including their store just off Preston & 635.
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt (or 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt)
- 16 ounces (454 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 4 large eggs (Or for a vegan version, I’ve had success with Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer, which I found at Target.)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder
- 10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks / 140 grams) unsalted butter, softened (Or for a vegan version, I’ve had success with Miyoko’s Vegan Butter, which I found at Target.)
- 1 ½ cups packed (10 ½ ounces / 297 grams) light brown sugar
- ½ cup (3 ½ ounces / 99 grams) granulated sugar
Directions:
Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl; set that aside.
Melt the chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost-simmering water, stirring once or twice, until smooth; remove from the heat. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla lightly with a fork, sprinkle the coffee powder over to dissolve it, and set that aside.
In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until it’s smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Beat in the sugars until they’re combined, about 45 seconds; the mixture will look granular. Reduce the speed to low and gradually beat in the egg mixture until it’s incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add the chocolate in a steady stream and beat until it’s combined, about 40 seconds.
Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. With your mixer at low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix until they’re just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature until the consistency is scoopable and fudgelike, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Leaving about 1 ½ inches between each ball, scoop the dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with a 1 ¾-inch ice-cream scoop.
Bake, reversing position of baking sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until the edges of cookies have just begun to set but their centers are still very soft, about 10 minutes. Cool the cookies on sheets for about 10 minutes, slide the parchment with the cookies onto wire racks, and let them cool to room temperature.
Cover one baking sheet with a new piece of parchment paper. Scoop the remaining dough onto the parchment-lined sheet, bake, and cool as directed. Remove the cooled cookies from the parchment with a wide metal spatula and serve.
Variation — Thick and Chewy Triple-Chocolate Cookies:
If you like bursts of warm melted chocolate in your cookies [and who doesn’t? —A], include chocolate chips in the batter. The addition of chips will slightly increase the yield of the cookies.
Follow the recipe for Thick and Chewy Double-Chocolate Cookies, adding 12 ounces (about 2 cups or 340 grams) of semisweet chocolate chips to the batter after the dry ingredients are incorporated in step 4.
The only downside to the recipe is that it can take longer than other cookie recipes (especially including the 30-minute wait-time after mixing the dough). All the same, I was really pleased with the results and I think these Triple-Chocolate Cookies may be my new favorite cookie :).
So, did you use Splenda instead of sugar?
Ah, ATK is great. I actually subscribed to one of their magazines (Cooks’ Illustrated) and it is always interesting to read through the painstaking steps they go through to get the recipe right. Oh, I think there is a chocolate cake recipe in one of the issues that I’ll have to send you sometime…
As it turns out, I did substitute Splenda for the white sugar. I left the brown sugar in there and the chocolate wasn’t sugar-free either. But maybe it helped a little bit ;).
The ATK recipe for Double-Chocolate Cookies, Thick and Chewy Cookies sounds fantastic. Not sure why, but there are a number of “&frac”s appearing in the recipe (ingredients and directions). Any chance you’d have a “clean” copy of the recipe you could drop me in an email?
Much obliged.
David: Should be all fixed now :).
hi i am in grad 7 and i got all my stuff of your wedsit
I tried these cookies too from ATK and almost panicked because the dough was so soft. Tasted great, but just wish I knew how to make them more round – maybe roll it with powdered sugar? I’ll try that – on Valentine’s Day!
Do you have to put in the coffee as I don’t drink coffee?
Also can you use any kind of cocoa?
Waiting to hear. Thanks.
The recipe sounded great once I got through the ridiculously round-about directions. Even for someone who has never baked a cookie before many of the directions were unnecessary; and even more were unclear, case in point step 2. It should have been broken into two separate steps if I hadn’t already know better I would have thought that you meant for me to beat the eggs, vanilla and coffee into the melted chocolate, seeing as you put it into the same step. Also It is always a good practice to state the cooking temperature at the beginning of the recipe seeing as some people’s ovens heat slower than others.
You are all stupid!
If the dough is soft, chill it an hour before baking and keep it in the fridge between batches. If they spread too much – try doing 1/2 butter and 1/2 crisco – doesn’t affect the taste but they won’t spread as much. Also, use a cookie scoop and flatten it against the side of the bowl – the cookies will stay a bit rounder and puffier.