Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our boys love to bake, so we try to find a project for them at least once a week.  This week, we gave them Carole Walter's Great Cookies and told them to pick ten recipes that looked good.  After heated negotiation to narrow down the choices and a controversial vote that required multi-variable calculus to tally, the winner was the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  These cookies are dense and fudgy, and should be served with a warning label that reads "must love chocolate".  That being said, this is a great recipe for kids, requiring very little parental assistance.  And the dough keeps well in the refrigerator, so you can bake just a few at a time if (like us) you need to have fresh-baked cookies every night before going to bed.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Carole Walter's Great Cookies

Ingredients

1              cup        unbleached A.P. flour

2              Tbs        Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1              tsp          baking powder

1/4           tsp          salt

8              oz           bittersweet chocolate (we used El Rey Bucare)

1/2           cup         butter

3/4           cup         sugar

1/2           cup         dark brown sugar

2                             eggs

2               Tbs         hot water

1 1/2         tsp          vanilla

12             oz           semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure

1. Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
2. Melt chocolate in the microwave.  Go in 30-second increments, stirring after each cycle.  As chocolate gets closer to being totally melted, use 15-second blasts, stirring after each cycle.   Don't overdo it or the chocolate will burn.
3. Cream butter until smooth.  Add sugar and combine well.  Add brown sugar and combine well.
4. Add eggs one at a time, scraping sides and bottom of bowl each time.
5. Add melted chocolate and just combine.  Then mix in hot water and vanilla.
6. Add half of the dry, beat until just combined.  Repeat with other half.  Add chocolate chips and mix on low until evenly distributed.
7. Wrap and refrigerate dough for several hours.
8. Scoop out balls of dough (which will be really hard to do -- the kids will need help here).  Dough will be crumbly and messy, but form balls by hand and place on silpat-lined sheet pan.  When all the balls are formed, flatten well with your hand -- they won't spread much.
9. Bake in convection oven at 350° until cookies are no longer shiny and lightened in color, about 12 minutes.
10. Our boys don't like nuts in their cookies, but we do.  You can add chopped walnuts to some of the dough for the grown-ups.