Double Chocolate Cookies

Chewy, all-American double chocolate cookies. The perfect texture with a very chocolatey flavour, these are my new go-to cookies when I fancy a quick treat. The perfect accompaniment for lazy afternoons pouring over recipes and cookery books!

So these cookies came about in a bit of a funny way. I really wasn’t looking for a blogging recipe at all – but turns out these were just too good not to post! After a baking fail (yes, they do happen!) I just really fancied a cookie, and as I stumbled across this recipe and had all the ingredients in the cupboard, it was a bit of an ‘oh why not’ situation. And they were perfect. And dangerously quick to make…

These are very chocolatey. And even though they are a chocolate biscuit, with lots of chocolate in, they are the perfect balance of sweet and bitter, which makes them dangerously moreish. They also have just the right texture; you know how some cookies can be a tad cake-y, and others can be too hard and crunchy? Well these are neither; they are the classic American cookie texture – slightly soft in the middle, crisp and sweet at the edges and chewy all over.

This recipe didn’t need to be changed at all; only tweaked to use a dairy free butter and dark chocolate. Although the original recipe used a mixture of milk and dark chocolate, I think these worked brilliantly with just dark – it stops them getting too sweet, and it made it a more grown-up flavour, making it feel like a decadent treat. You could of course still use half and half if preferred, using a dairy free ‘milk’ chocolate. Whichever you choose, just try to resist eating them all at once!

Makes 15 cookies. Takes 15 minutes, plus baking and cooling time.

Recipe from: http://www.inspiredtaste.net/19084/chewy-double-chocolate-cookies-recipe/

Ingredients:

• 170g dark chocolate
• 125g dairy free butter
• 100g white caster sugar
• 110g light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1tsp vanilla
• 175g plain flour
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• Small pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line two baking trays with grease proof paper.
2. Chop the chocolate into small chunks and set aside.
3. In a large bowl using a hand or electric whisk, whisk the butter and sugars together until pale and fluffy. Whisk in the egg and vanilla until just combined.
4. 
5. In a separate bowl add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, and mix until evenly combined.
6. Add the flour mix to the dough, and whisk again on a low speed until combined. Don’t over-mix.
7. 
8. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the chocolate chunks, and then drop a large tablespoon of dough onto the lined baking trays. Leave at least 5cm around each dollop of dough as they will spread when baking.
9. 
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 – 15 minutes, until smelling delicious and the tops of the cookies are dry.
11. Leave to cool on the baking trays for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.