Chocolaty Goodness Cookies

The other night I had a serious craving for cookies. It probably had something to do with the torrential downpour (synonymous with "summer night", I think), or something to do with the decent chocolate chips I found. More on that in a moment.

This recipe is originally from Bakerella (www.bakerella.com), creator of fabulously naughty treats. I have changed the recipe slightly, but you can find the original here.

First I had to empty out my fruit bowl. It is clearly a $1 disposable party bowl with a taped together crack at the bottom that was left behind by Bachelor Ben. Bachelor Ben was the tenant in our flat before us. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but it did take about 2 days of scrubbing and cleaning and at least a gallon of paint to truly get Bachelor Ben out. Anyways, I'm thankful for his discarded party bowl, because it is my fruit bowl and my mixing bowl until the container arrives (7 days, God willing...)

Wine is imperative if you truly care about making good cookies.

As I gathered my ingredients together, I got the iPad out. It's not that I don't remember my recipe... it's that I have to convert almost everything! First of all, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, or in my case, 176 C.

I start with creaming together the butter and sugar. I've decreased the sugar amount in the cookies to suit my tastes. The butter, I would never decrease. The recipe calls for half a cup. But my butter...

My butter is in grams. Oh my.

116g of butter = 1/2 cup. Hopefully things go more smoothly from here... Add 2 eggs and a half a cup of peanut butter. I prefer smooth peanut butter, but all I had on hand was chunky:

My pictures don't look like the ones in fancy baking blogs, do they? I blame it on Bachelor Ben's bowl.

Beat these ingredients until creamy, and then add vanilla (stir), salt (stir), baking soda, (stir), cocoa flour and flour (and stir). The last ingredient is the most important, and in my case, the lowest quality. I will of course be continuing the hunt for decent chocolate chips.

For now, Cadbury are the best I've found. 

The batter will be pretty greasy feeling, but that's okay! It creates the soft and chewy texture after baking! Personally, I like to refrigerate my dough for about a half hour before baking, so my cookies don't come out flat. This works for any kind of cookie, but if you're a crunchy cookie kind of person, don't chill that dough!

Absolutely good for eating right out of the fruit bowl. No baking pan required!

Spoon 1 inch balls onto greased pan (or parchment paper, which I would prefer if I had any on hand). They don't spread too much, so I can get 15 on a pan.

Bake for 9-10 minutes. I do 9. They don't look done, but they are. Part of the goodness is the slightly under baked texture becomes delightfully chewy. Any more than 10 minutes, and they're chips.

I promise to work on my food photography skills if you promise not to over bake these cookies!

So here's the recipe for my favorite chocolate cookies:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 oz. dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 or 176 degrees, depending on your hemisphere, and bake for 9-10 minutes tops.

Makes approximately 30 cookies, depending on how much dough doesn't make it onto the pan.

Enjoy!