I love having a food blog. I’ve always adored experimenting with recipes, writing is in my blood, and I’ve been huge into photography since the beginning of time (though for me, food photography is much more of a challenge than landscapes, pets, or portraits). Oh, and I love creating spaces on the web – I’ve been drawn to the internet since its inception, shaping my career first around web design, then development, then focusing more on writing professionally for corporate websites, and then finally, this blog – such a perfect intersection of so much of what I love.
But the reason why I brought it up is a little cheaper than everything I listed above. The guilty truth is, I also love having a food blog because it gives me an excuse. An excuse to make sinful recipes like these salted double dark chocolate cookies.
These rich, ebony little nuggets of pure heaven really have no business being in my kitchen other than if I’m going to wrap them up and give them immediately away. Which, luckily, kind of happened … our friend came over shortly after I made and photographed them, and, thankfully, it was his birthday. I plopped a candle in the top of that pile of cookies you see above, and he blew out the candle (several times, actually – it was one of those annoying relighting candles), we each ate one, and I sent the rest home with him.
But not before I took many ooey, gooey, chocolate-upon-chocolatey photos of these cookies. And, okay fine, I’ll admit it – not before I had already stuffed several in my face (hey, I had to make sure they were blog-worthy), and not before my guy consumed several of his own, simultaneously uttering words of praise and cursing me for bringing such irresistibleness into our lives.
These double dark chocolate cookies have so much cocoa, they’re practically black. Those chips you see there? They’re dark chocolate chips. So you can see just how gloriously rich and jet-black these cookies are. I adore the way a little sprinkle of salt amplifies those wonderful heady chocolate notes, so I added simple coarse kosher salt to the dough itself, plus I dropped a little more on top before baking. You can use a fancier sea salt – I just happened to not have any in the house, and kosher salt worked perfectly.
The only thing I might do differently next time is add a couple of teaspoons of instant espresso powder to really boost the chocolate flavors.
Gosh, more experimenting? I suppose I must. It’s such hell being a food blogger.
Salted Double Dark Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated (white sugar)
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cups unsweetened dark cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt plus about 3 teaspoons more for sprinkling on top
- 2 cups dark chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one until completely blended in, and then the vanilla.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat on low (or stir by hand) until the ingredients are incorporated. Add the chocolate chips. The batter will be very thick.
- Scoop the cookies in approximately 2-tablespoon increments onto an ungreased non-stick cookie sheet or cookie sheet lined with silpat. I recommend a cookie scoop for this step - makes life so much easier.
- Bake for about 7 minutes, until the cookies seem set but might still appear underdone (key to a soft, moist cookie). Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely.
sounds delish!
I don’t need an excuse to dive head first into these. Yum!
I need one of these ASAP. Wow! They look delicious! Send me some? ^_^ I’ll pay shipping! *hehe*
They sound wonderful. Actually kind of close to a similar recipe I often make called Saskatchewan double chocolate cookies. I’m not quite sold on the salt on the top of the cookie thing but I really don’t like salt and hate having to add it to recipes.
Hi Cheryl! Man, I *wish* I hated salt. I like it *too* much. 😉
OMG these look phenomenal! That melty chocolate looks too good to be true. Pinned, and definitely making soon.
I always wonder about how people come into blogging, so it was fun reading a little about your backstory. I taught myself HTML when I was 14, back when AOL was pretty much the extent of the internet to most people. I had a website with flashing text–remember flashing text?!
Cookies are definitely a good reason to have a food blog. 🙂
Ha, I remember flashing text too! And rainbow horizontal lines. I used a few of those, I must admit.
I grew up in the era of the Texas Instruments computer. I would spend hours writing code that would play a 10-second song, and once I programmed it to do my math homework. I was less geeky than that sounds, though, really … I was just grounded and bored a lot! 😉
Oh boy. I shouldn’t have made these because I just ate 4 in no time flat! Super easy, and amazing. The salt takes it over the top.
Oh my god these things look deadly.
I seriously needed them OUT. OF. the house. 🙂
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I just made these, subbed 60% cacao ghiradelli baker’s chocolate for the cocoa powder (plus a little leftover 100% cacao chocolate) and used a small amount of semisweet chips… plus waay more salt on top… I’m obsessed with salty-chocolate things.
These… were just… too…. good… for… words… (cue happy seizure here). I love you for giving me this recipe. And kind of hate you, cuz I’ve already eaten 10 bite-sized cookies in 2 hours. 😉
LOL – I’ll take the love, and the hate. It’s a good hate! 😉 Those sound fabulous – glad to know the substitution for cocoa powder turns out great. I will have to try it!
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I made these for my colleagues at work in celebration of “Nurses Week” in Ontario. They were easy to make and so very good! Great recipe will certainly make them again.
Thanks
Yay! So glad you liked them. 🙂
I’m thinking of making these as part of my annual client cookie gifts, & would love to do them ahead. How long do you think they’d keep? Of course I’ll need to hide them from myself!
Yes, I often have to hide cookies from myself! 🙂 They’ll do fine at room temp for 3-4 days (in an airtight container). But they also freeze fabulously; that’s what I’d do!
When do you put the salt on top?
Delicious! I swapped a 1/4 cup of the cocoa powder for King Arthur’s Black Cocoa, and used Guittard’s Onyx Extra Bittersweet 72 % chocolate wafers for the chocolate chips. Everyone raved at Christmas.