Warning! Warning! Maybe some of you will want to close their eyes for a moment, here… ;o) My next couple of posts aren’t going to be of the healthy kind! Hey, it is Christmas after all and no one wants to eat millet on Christmas day now do they? Well, I know I don’t anyway. I had decided that I would let all hell break loose during the Holiday Season, and that is just what I am doing. I know I will have no problem going back to my healthy lifestyle after New Year. When I go back to work, everything returns to normal.

But for now, I am feeding on erm… mostly sugar and fat! Yikes! I told you I had been cooking a lot and I would have some pictures to show you eventually. Well, this is project number one. I have more to come after, but I will have to do this one project at a time, because, well, time is an issue! It took quite a few hours to sort through the hundreds of pictures that I had taken and upload them, now I still need to post about them. But what fun I’ve had with this project. Most were Christmas presents that I made for my friends and family.

First up, Double Dark Chocolate Cookies. As soon as I saw them on Jennifer’s site, I knew I had to make them someday, and sooner than later. They just looked so decadently dark and rich and tasty. Well, let me tell you, they are! They are just as good as they look, if not more. And the dough! Wow. Cookie dough at its best. I must’ve had a half dozen cookies before I even started baking them!

So you can find the recipe on Bake or Break. I followed it almost exactly. I only replaced the cherries with dried cranberries. And I find that you need to shape the cookies by hand a little before cooking them, else, they end up looking like, erm, well, they look exactly like what they do when you cut them. A mini-log. Not exactly appealing…

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
  2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar about 3 minutes or until fluffy. Add egg and mix well. Stir in vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low and add flour mixture in three portions, mixing each just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and cherries. Refrigerate dough for a few hours until firm.
  3. Place the dough on a clean work surface and divide in half. Roll out into logs about 12 inches long. Refrigerate for about an hour. Dough can be frozen for a month if wrapped well in plastic wrap and aluminum foil.
  4. Preheat oven to 350°. Line baking sheets. Cut dough into 1-inch slices. Place cookies 1½ inches apart on baking sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until cookies look just baked. Do not overbake.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

More goodies to come soon!