More Chocolate Please

I absolutely love chocolate, especially dark chocolate.  I love salty foods but if I had to choose I would always pick something sweet over something salty.  As you can see from these pictures my mom started making me a chocolate cake for my birthday as early as age 1.  Nowadays I’m more of a vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream or red velvet with cream cheese frosting type but I still love my chocolate.

This past Tuesday I was in the baking mood (When am I not in the baking mood?!) and looking for something extra chocolaty to make.  Going through my collection of cookbooks I settled on a recipe from “Baking From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan.  The thing I liked about this recipe was the use of cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate so it was double the chocolate, plus it only called for brown sugar, no granulated sugar necessary, which resulted in a moister and slightly sweeter cookie.  One bit of advice for these cookies is I would recommend letting the batter cool down slightly for about 15 minutes so it has a chance to firm up.  This way when you’re scooping out the cookies you have uniform balls of dough.

Chocolate Oatmeal Drops
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

Makes about 50 cookies (My cookies were larger so I only ended up with 3 dozen)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 C. flour
• 1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 Tsp baking soda
• 1/2 Tsp salt
• 1/2 Tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 1/2 C. packed brown sugar
• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used bittersweet chocolate chips)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 C. old-fashioned oats

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line cookie sheets with parchment.
2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.  Set aside.
3. In a heat proof bowl over simmering water, melt the butter, water, brown sugar and chocolate chips, stirring occasionally until all is melted.  Be sure the heat is not too high or the mixture will start to separate.
4. Remove from heat, and add eggs one at a time, whisking quickly to prevent the eggs from becoming scrambled.  Stir in the flour then the oats until just incorporated.
5. Using a cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto the cookie sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie.  (I was able to fit 12 on a sheet.)  Bake 12 minutes, turning the cookie sheet around after 6 minutes, until the cookies are dark around the edges and just slightly soft in the middle.  Transfer to baking rack and cool to room temperature.  Let cookie sheets cool between batches before scooping more dough onto them.  Enjoy with a cup of coffee like me or a tall glass of cold milk.