Chocolate Cookies

A few years ago I had a disastrous experience baking chocolate cookies, so I had absolutely no intention of baking Double Chocolate Cookies from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. It's heartbreaking when all that good chocolate goes to waste. I was flipping through the book looking for the Chocolate Muffins recipe when my sister persuaded me to bake the cookies instead.

The first time I baked them the batter looked very runny to me, not at all like cookie dough. So I ended up adding twice the amount of flour mentioned in the recipe. Some googling later revealed that the batter is supposed to be a bit thin, less like stiff cookie dough and more like brownie batter, and that I needn't have been alarmed. Both versions of the recipe turned out great though. The cookies made with more flour spread less during baking and so were slightly fatter.

Once the cookies came out of the oven and we finally had a taste, I was so glad I baked them. They turned out perfectly; intensely chocolatey, with chewy edges and soft, fudgy centres.

I have never baked anything that disappeared as quickly as these did.

Chocolate Cookies
adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook

Ingredients
50g (1.8 oz) unsalted butter
225g (8 oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
2 eggs
170g (6 oz) brown sugar
¼ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp instant coffee powder
85g (3 oz) flour
½ tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
Chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 325⁰F (165⁰C).
2. Line two baking trays with wax paper and lightly grease the paper. Set aside.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Stir in the salt, and set aside.
4. Add the butter and chocolate to a large mixing bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water in the pan.
5. When the chocolate has melted, take the bowl off the heat and set aside.
6. Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and coffee to a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until combined.
7. Pour in the warm butter-chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and mix well. 
8. Stir in the flour mixture.
9. Using a large cookie scoop* portion out all the batter (the batter will stiffen if it's left to sit, making it harder to scoop it out). Sprinkle a few chocolate chips, if using, on top of each cookie.
10. Bake for 15 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking tray for 10 to 15 minutes.
12. Carefully remove the cookies and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

*I used a regular ice cream scoop (a large cookie scoop will also do the trick) to portion out these cookies. The scoop has a diameter of 2¼ inches and it holds about ¼ cup (approx. 3 oz) of cookie dough, resulting in 3½ inch cookies.

Make 9 cookies.