Chocolate delivers, rain or shine

When the weather is cold and wet - and one is invited to a dinner party on such a Thursday night - a young man's fancy turns to baking (if he's an, um, fancyman, that is). Of course, chocolate is always in fashion, rain or shine, so yesterday I broke out a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I had saved away a few months ago.

I found it on SFGate.com (here), but the recipe is originally from "Demolition Desserts" by Elizabeth Falkner (of Citizen Cake fame), a book that takes some familiar desserts and reformulates them into almost unfamiliar - but still very much delicious (or moreso) - formats. Some of the recipes, in fact, could be classified more as "projects" than simple baking in terms of the effort required to pull them off, but if you're going for pizazz, you can't really go wrong with what she suggests.

That said, there are very doable recipes for folks with less time to invest but still want to impress your friends. Ms. Falkner's Chocolate² Chip Espresso Cookies fit the bill nicely; the recipe follows (with my own baking notes):

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SIFT:
1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 1/4 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons finely ground espresso-roast coffee beans

BASE:
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened but still cool
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (7 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (7 1/4 ounces) firmly packed dark brown sugar

ADD1:
1 (1 1/2 ounces) large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

ADD2:
1 1/3 cups (8 ounces) semisweet, milk, or white chocolate chips, or a combination

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1. In a medium bowl, sift together the SIFT ingredients

2. In a large bowl cream together the butter and brown and granulated sugars (thge BASE ingredients) until smooth but not overmixed using a wooden spoon.

3. Add the ADD1 ingredients to the large bowl and stir just until combined.

4. Add the SIFT ingredients to the butter mixture in two additions, stirring gently after each addition just until combined. When I added the SIFT ingredients, the dough was crazy crumbly and was not really coming together into a smooth, whole, dough. In fact, I rechecked the recipe several times because I thought I left out some milk or eggs or something else that would bind everything together. But no; the ingredients listed above are all you need. So, at this point, I just got into the bowl with my hands and everything came together just fine into a thick, chocolaty, dough.

5. Add the chocolate chips and stir - or, as I did, use your hands - just until evenly distributed throughout the dough. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

6. In the meantime, position the racks in the upper third and lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°.

7. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop up 1-inch balls of dough for full-size cookies or 1/2-inch balls for mini cookies with a spoon or mini scoop. Set the large scoops 2 inches apart or the small scoops 1 inch apart on the prepared pans. Yesterday, I actually made 2-inch balls of dough (and patted them down on the cookie sheet because I was in a hurry to get these guys in the oven - I was late for dinner!

8. Bake the mini cookies for about 5 minutes and the full-size cookies for about 8 minutes, and then rotate the pans and bake both sizes for another 3 minutes, or until they are puffed and still look a little wet in the center. Transfer to racks and let cool. For the 2-inch versions that I made, I baked them according to the directions for the "full-size" cookies, which left them with a *very* fudgey consistency.. I did not hear any complaints!

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These cookies will keep for 2 to 3 days in an airtight container, but they will be at their most tender the day you bake them. The recipe makes about 4 dozen full-size cookies, 8 dozen mini cookies, or - as I found out - about 2 dozen mega cookies (2-inchers). No matter the size, these cookies are pretty awesome.. and will get you buzzed on all sorts of levels: you'll find sugar, chocolate, and coffee, in each delectable bite. It seems, for these cookies at least, size doesn't matter (except when it does), so eat up!