chocolate — Alexandra Hedin | Weeknight Party Girl — Alexandra Hedin

Double Chocolate Cookies are the perfect cookie | Ali Hedin

These cookies became my favorite and almost surpassed traditional chocolate chip cookies in my house. I made these last week and the kids went crazy. That’s when I realized I’d never posted them here! I’ve been making them for 100 years and I can’t believe I haven’t shared them with you yet. These are really good. Like really.

The trick is to use the best quality cocoa powder you can find. Cheap ones often leave a chalky flavor to the finished product. The good stuff creates a smooth chocolate flavor that permeates the cookie entirely. I also discovered in my testing of these cookies that the critical step is to blend the cocoa with the butter and sugars. Cocoa powder is a dehydrated product - I discovered that if I “rehydrate” it with the butter, it cooks up to a gooey texture. Most recipes include cocoa powder with the dry ingredients, but then it doesn’t have time to rehydrate and it turns to a dry flaky consistency.

Double Chocolate Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen

1 cup room temperature butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup Dutch Process cocoa powder

2 eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 350. In the bowl of a stand mixer cream butter and both sugars until pale and fluffy. Add cocoa and incorporate on low speed. Increase to high speed and beat until mixture lightens in color.

STEP 2

Beat in vanilla then eggs, one at a time, incorporating completely after each egg is added.

STEP 3

In a separate bowl, combine flour, soda and salt. Add dry ingredients to the cocoa mixture slowly and mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

STEP 4

Drop one inch balls of dough on a cookie sheet using a small ice cream scoop. Place cookie sheet in hot oven and cook 10-12 minutes until cookies are no longer shiny on top. Let cool on cookie sheet 10 more minutes. Transfer to wire rack and allow to cool completely.