Am I the only one who thinks something is wrong when four cups of chocolate chips are supposed to make a recipe of twenty-four cookies? Did I mention the one and a fourth cups of butter?
If you're thinking that I'm the one who is off my rocker for actually baking these cookies, well, I would have to agree. Two very clever readers came up with the missing ingredient. No one, but no one had sent me any cookie recipes with chocolate! Sort of hard to believe. I've received loads of cut-out sugar cookie recipes, and several variations on wedding cookies (the balls that are rolled in powdered sugar), but until last week, not one recipe with chocolate!
By the way, it's not too late to send me your favorite Christmas cookie recipe. Send it to Krista at KristaDavis dot com. As always, previously submitted cookies are still in the running.
Let me add that another extremely famous and traditional recipe is missing from the submissions. Here's a hint.
Back to the chocolate recipes. I received several that I'm eager to try, but this one was so over-the-top -- how could I resist? We like to give the creators of recipes their due here, but honestly, I'm not sure who came up with this doozy. Our winner, for submitting it, is Lynn in Texas! She found the recipe on the net, posted by George Geary. He sampled them in a cooking class in 1998 and had misplaced the recipe, but I'm not sure that it's his original recipe. I have no idea who Caryn is.
For those brave enough to try, here's the recipe Lynn sent to me~
QUADRUPLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
by George Geary
Yield: 24 cookies
Temperature: 350 degrees F.
Not one, not two, but FOUR kinds of chocolate for these ever-so-rich cookies! You can double the batch and freeze the other half in a log and slice and bake cookies when unexpected company drops in.
1-1/4 cups unsalted butter, softened (2-1/2 sticks)
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch process
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until incorporated and then mix in the vanilla until well blended.
2. Meanwhile, in another bowl, combine or sift together the flour, cocoa powder, soda and salt. Add it to the above mixture and mix slowly and only until blended. Add the chips and stir them into the mixture by hand.
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes.
(Personal note from Caryn: If you follow George's directions and drop by teaspoonfuls, you'll get a LOT more than 24 cookies. He must have had a typo in his yield above.)
My notes from class: George used a large, ice cream sized scoop to measure out cookie dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets. He wet his hands and pressed down a bit on each mound of dough before baking.
Caryn's notes from making cookies on 11/28/10==>
1) I used all Callebaut chocolate--chips for both semisweet & milk; and chunks (purchased from King Arthur Flour) for the Callebaut white chocolate.
2) I used 1 cup white chocolate chunks instead of the 2 cups chips called for, and I thought the cookies came out plenty sweet enough w/ 1 cup chunks.
3) With a 2-inch scoop (#20), I baked for 10 minutes and let cookies sit at room temp on a cake rack until they were cool before removing them from the baking sheet.
4) With a #40 scoop (about 1-9/16"), I baked 8 minutes and let cookies continue to sit on pans after removing from oven until cookies had cooled.
5) ***NOTE that the cookies will not look or feel done when you take them out of the oven, but will finish cooking on the hot baking sheet as they cool.
Enjoy! Posted by Wigs @Eat.at.com, formerly Finer Kitchens
And now, Krista's take ~
Other than being brave enough to bake and eat these cookies, there is nothing difficult about making them. It's another Nina Reid Norwood cookie that anyone can make. However, unless you have highly developed muscles from chopping wood, I would not undertake this recipe without a very serious electric mixer. My KitchenAid mixer didn't have any problems, but a hand mixer probably wouldn't be able to handle the very dense dough.
The recipe called for Dutch process powdered chocolate. I have no idea why. I made it with my favorite powdered chocolate from Penseys, and it worked fine.
I dropped the cookies on parchment paper with a teaspoon. The dough was thick enough to roll into balls, so I experimented. I flattened some cookies, and left some in ball shape. As you can see, it made little difference.
WARNING! I gained 30 pounds from
smelling the raw cookie dough. It's a chocoholic's dream come true. The resulting cookie is actually very much like a double chocolate chip cookie. Soft in the middle with a slight crunch on the outside.
I baked ten cookies that were about two and a half inches in diameter. This was the amount of dough I had left. Twenty-four cookies? Seriously? Were they supposed to be the size of pie plates? In spite of the recommendation to double the recipe, I would recommend against it. I had plenty of dough left to freeze. (I made
four rolls, wrapped them in waxed paper and stashed them in a freezer bag.) And perhaps more importantly, unless you have a commercial size mixer, I don't think most mixers could handle a doubled recipe.
While these aren't traditional Christmas cookies, I'm guessing they'd be a very good choice to leave for Santa. But skip the hot chocolate with these cookies. Leave Santa some of Cleo's coffee or a nice tall glass of cold milk.
Bake with joy!
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