The Quest For The Best New Cookie

One of the great blogging truths is this: Illness is not conducive to good blogging. Yes, I know, it’s probably not conducive to much of anything good, but still. It cripples the blogger in multiple ways. For one, when the brain is amuck, all writing pretty much comes up lacking no matter how you dress it. On top of that travesty, when you are sick, nothing happens to you, so there’s less writing material.

Well, nothing that anyone wants to hear about, anyway, and certainly not in any great detail.

Without getting into much detail, then, may I just say that my family and I have been through the wringer the last few days, illness-wise. Our house is beginning to feel like a makeshift med center during a plague outbreak. The Big Nasty has come a callin’.

Pre-plague, I had stocked up on craft supplies and ingredients, intending to make coastal ornaments, try two new recipes, and then blog about them.

The stars were not aligned on that front, clearly.

And, now that I’m slowly recovering, no one in my household is ready to eat that which I have baked and coughed violently upon. Nor do I yet have the mental capacity for crafting, a challenging proposition for me when all faculties are in order.

So instead, I’ll just share my favorite cookie recipe of late with you, and then I’m going to direct you to some sites with a variety of cookie recipes guaranteed to make you salivate, all of which are being shared in support of a great cause.

I’ve made no secret of my chocolate obsession here on An Island Mom. All my favorite cookies involve chocolate, and my current favorite cookie is the Brownie Cookie, from myrecipes.com. The recipe is as follows:

½ cup butter

4 (1-ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, chopped

3 cups (18 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

4 large eggs

1 ½ cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups chopped pecans, toasted

Combine butter, unsweetened chocolate, and 1 ½ cups chocolate morsels in a large heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter and chocolate melt; cool.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl; set aside.

Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer. Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture, beating well. Add chocolate mixture; beat well. Stir in remaining 1 ½ cups chocolate morsels and pecans.

Drop dough by 2 tablespoonfuls 1 inch apart onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Cool slightly on baking sheets; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

The recipe says it makes about 2 ½ dozen, but given that I eyeball the size of my scoops, I end up with closer to 4 dozen cookies.

I prepare the recipe pretty much as listed above, except I now substitute dark chocolate chips for the semi-sweet chips and I often leave out the pecans. Both adjustments are due to family preferences only. These cookies are so good that my vocabulary doesn’t have a word to fully describe it. They’re just, they’re just beyond. Be warned, however. These cookies have a very rich chocolate taste, so they are best reserved for those with strong attachments to the cacao bean. Furthermore, do not consume these without beverages readily available, because they require plentiful measures of them. My son, for instance, eats these with a glass and a gallon of milk on hand. Consider yourself warned.

While convalescing, I read blogs. And so I stumbled across a group of bloggers doing a series of posts on cookie recipes this week, all to benefit pediatric cancer research. Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is an organization raising funds for pediatric cancer research. Each blogger has chosen a recipe from the cookbook Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Research Cookbook to feature. Browse these sites for scrumptious cookie recipes each day this week, and check out Cookies for Kids’ Cancer for great ways to support pediatric cancer research. In addition, visit Glad for other opportunities to support pediatric cancer research, including their pledge to donate 10 cents for every virtual cookie exchanged on Facebook. (Note: Even sick people can do this one. Just saying.)

The cookie recipes and other information on Cookies for Kids’ Cancer can be found on the following blogs:

Sunday: Important Background Information (seriously!)

Monday: Comfortably Domestic

Tuesday: Inside NanaBread’s Head

Wednesday: Wanna Be a Country Cleaver

Thursday: Tenaciously Yours

Friday: La Petite Pancake

Saturday: Decadent Philistines

Thank you to all these fine bloggers for their efforts to aid in the fight against cancer. I certainly hope that they raise tremendous awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research, so that more children can be saved from this devastating disease.

Oh, and I hope everyone finds a great cookie recipe to use this holiday season!

11 Replies to “The Quest For The Best New Cookie”

  1. The cookies look delicious. I’ll have to try them. I may add a bit of espresso powder to kick up the chocolate even more. M’Lord will be in heaven. Right now we have chocolate krackle cookies in one of the cookie jars. Mmmmm….chocolate.

    Hope everyone is well quickly. We are working through a bout of pinkeye with the Cub right now. At least it is this week and not next.

    1. Mmm, interesting idea with the espresso powder. Sounds like you appreciate chocolate as much as I do.

      We did pinkeye 3 years ago. So much fun. Plus, my older son got it twice, because the antibiotics they used the first time they apparently were starting to find were not as effective as the old standby antibiotics. So that was even more fun. I agree though, this week is better than next. Hope the Cub recoups fast!

      1. A friend introduced me to espresso powder a couple of years ago. I will add a slight coffee flavor to some chocolate recipes, but though I don’t like coffee, I don’t mind it due to the kick that it adds to the chocolate flavor. Add a teaspoon to any chocolate cookie or brownie or cake recipe.

        The Cub is almost done with the drops now. Now if his nose would stop sounding clogged I’d be really happy. But he goes back to school tomorrow. Yay!

        1. Thanks for the tip on espresso powder. I’ll have to check it out. Glad The Cub is feeling better. In my experience, however, stuffy noses, particularly for kids, can drag on forever. You just have to deal with it , I guess, for lack of a better option.

  2. Oh, I hope you and your family feel better soon…!! I don’t think I’ll be baking cookies. Honestly, I totally suck at it. And I tried! But just today I found a couple of recipes for chocolate cakes…

    1. If you can do what you did with a mirror and some shells (and countless other DIY projects), in my mind your baking prowess is rather irrelevant. Wanna trade skills? 🙂

  3. Oh my goodness, thank you so much for joining in with our CFKC merriment. Also? I am SO excited about this cookie recipe. I am a more-is-more-type of chocolate person, so I really cannot wait to try these.

    1. Glad you like the recipe. I think you’ll be pleased. And, I just love what you all did this week with your CFKC posts and thought, hey, it’d be great to give it as much attention as we can.

  4. I hope you are feeling better – I hate being sick this time of year (cough, hack, cough, blargh!), so I’m standing (uh, wearily sitting up?) with you in solidarity there!
    Thanks for joining in on the fun! I hope that all our efforts can help make a dent in the scourge that is cancer.
    PS – those look divine!

    1. Sorry you’re experiencing some of the same nastiness that we are, too. Guess it’s the unfortunate part of this time of the year.

      I absolutely love what all of you did for Cookie Week, so I’m more than glad to add any support I can. Thanks again for your post and your letter. Very moving.

  5. Those brownie cookies look fantastic. In fact, they look like the kind of cookie I’d be tempted to make and then hide in a closet with so I wouldn’t have to share. These are on tap for my next chocolate craving, for sure.

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