Chocolate Heaven

If you are a chocolate lover, this is the absolute best chocolate cookie EVER… promise. They can be described as a brownie on the outside and a chocolate truffle on the inside. Rich to be sure, but why bother with anything less than pure confectionery decadence?

Chocolate Truffle Cookies

Ingredients:

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
6 tbsp. butter
2 cups (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup flour
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Method:

Heat oven to 250 degrees.

Chop unsweetened chocolate and cut butter into pieces. Place the chopped unsweetened chocolate, cut butter and 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips in an oven safe, preferably non-stick pan. Melt all 3 ingredients in the oven, stirring occasionally. Cool.

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, beat sugar and eggs about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Stir in melted chocolate mixture, then flour mixture and finally the remaining 1 cup chocolate chips.

Cover cookie dough mixture with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Shape chilled cookie dough into approximately 1 inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake until cookies puff up... about 10 minutes.

Note: As with any cookie, the longer you bake them, the crispier they become. So for a chewy, gooey cookie, keep an eye on them and don’t over-bake.

Tips: Baking is all about precision, so for the best tasting cookies, use exact measurements (no pinch of this or that) and use premium ingredients… real butter, pure vanilla extract (no imitation), high quality cocoa powder and chocolate. Also, bring eggs to room temperature prior to mixing. To prevent ruining the mixture, it’s a good idea to break eggs into a separate bowl before adding them to the other ingredients, just in case you get a bad egg. And, for the best results when baking, hang or position a portable oven thermometer inside the oven to insure correct temperature since most household ovens are not calibrated correctly.