If you hang around with science fiction fans (of any flavor) you will inevitably hear a certain phrase. It’s always offered up with giggles, or a leer, or…
Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies!
Being a geek, and a foodie, when the First Reader made a joke about the dark side having better cookies (in addition to a sense of humor) I decided I had to make a Darkside Cookie. Now, if all I wanted was dark, that’s easy. A big ol’ dollop of food dye, and voila, black cookies. Of course, your victi, er, recruits to the Rebel Alliance will crap green for a week, but hey, dark cookies?
No. What I wanted was flavor. Big, bold flavor. Sensuous cookies that seduce the tastebuds. Chocolate, the food of the gods. Perfect for the geeks who understudy Prometheus.
I asked for thoughts in a group of equally geeky and foodie friends. Moar Chocolate! the ringing shout echoed. And caffeine. And… And someone pointed out that it should have all the ‘evil’ foodstuffs. Sugar, fats, glutens. John Ringo gleefully suggested that every ingredient be GMO. Only problem with that is they don’t label for GMOs (yet) but I can guarantee the flour is GMO, at least.
Once we had covered that, and the silliness had given me good working ideas, I had to acquire ingredients. I have used instant coffee powder in cooking, but Amanda Fuesting pointed me toward Espresso Powder, which sounded ideal for the Darkside Cookies. I also found dark chocolate chips rather than the bittersweet I normally use.
Armed and ready for operations, I commenced with the base recipe I use for chocolate chip cookies.
Ingredients
- 1/2 c butter (about 113 g)
- 1/2 c baking cocoa powder (about 60 g)
- 1 c white sugar (about 250 g)
- 1 c brown sugar (approx 250 g)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (about 10 g)
- 1/2 tbsp Espresso powder (about 15 g)
- 2 eggs (if your chicken lays in metric, I want photos)
- 1 tsp (5 g) Baking soda (NaHCO3, sodium bicarbonate. Food chemistry!)
- 2 c white flour (500 g)
- 12 oz Chocolate chips, best with dark chocolate or bittersweet (340 g)
- 1 c toffee, chopped roughly (I made a batch, but you can buy it near the chocolate chips in the store, or hack up a heath bar) (about 300 g)
Instructions
- In a stand mixer with a batter blade, or a large bowl with wooden spoon, cream the butter until it is creamy and smooth.
- Preheat the oven to 375 deg F (190 C).
- Slowly add the baking cocoa into the butter. It may not incorporate fully, but all the cocoa should be dark black-brown and shiny.
- Mix in the sugars.
- Add the eggs and vanilla, beating until they are fully incorporated.
- Mix in slowly about half the flour, the espresso powder and the baking soda.
- Add half the chocolate chips.
- Mix in the remainder of the flour, then the chocolate chips and toffee. Stop as soon as they are evenly distributed so you don’t overly activate the gluten.
- Using two spoons, I place about a large spoonful of dough onto a pan. You do not have to grease the pan, but I like the silicon liners and if don’t have that but you’re doing multiple batches, parchment paper under the cookies eliminates the need for clean-up between batches. You’ll get about a dozen cookies on a regular cookie sheet.
- Bake for 12 minutes.
- Cool on the pan for 2-3 minutes. Leave them alone! Contains hot lava! If you burn your mouth now, you won’t taste them later.
- Remove from pan to rack for further cooling, prepare another batch for baking.
- This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies, 5 if you make them smaller (why would you do that? Embrace the dark!)
Now, this wasn’t the first batch I did. But the first batch wasn’t quite dark enough, and although the flavor was great, they weren’t what I had envisioned. But don’t worry… that recipe will appear later today.
In the meantime… the Darkside cookies are very chocolaty, very rich, and utterly decadent. The First Reader complained that they were too chocolaty.
Yes!! I have achieved the chocolate singularity!
Muahaha… come to the darkside cookies.
Comments
6 responses to “Darkside Cookies”
yeah..love you but ditching the coffee and toffee. and replacing with chunks of more special dark candy
The coffee is this is an undernote – it enhances the chocolate flavor without being a coffee flavor. I suggest you try it before dismissing the idea.
The toffee you can go without and more chocolate chunks are always possible.
Oooh…too bad I’ve just thrown next week’s birthday cake in the oven, then I’ll have to do dinner. The day just isn’t long enough. Maybe I’ll have to make the toffee tonight, though…
Did you use black cocoa powder in the darker version?
No, I used a whole lot MORE in the darker… and I blended it with the butter to get it fully fatted before finishing the dough.
That would explain both the color and the chocolate intensity. Good work…I’m definitely going to have to try this one out.
[…] I started work on the perfect recipe to lure people to the dark side with cookies, I knew it might take a while to get it right. By working off the base of […]