You will lose yourself completely to these cookies. Resistance is not only futile, it’s not even in the dictionary any more. Not when it comes to these cookies.
Just imagine: 2 pounds — yes, pounds — of chocolate in these cookies.
They don’t call these “Chocolate Truffle Cookies with Crackly Crust” for nothing.
The recipe is from the new “The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook” (William Morrow), of which I just received a review copy. The book is by Seattle superstar Chef Tom Douglas and Shelley Lance, his former pastry chef who’s now his chief recipe tester.
You’ll find 125 recipes — both sweet and savory — from his bakery, including the “Classic Sandwich with Smoked Pork Loin,” “Piedmontese Hazelnut Cake” and his famous “Dahlia Triple Coconut Cream Pie.”
Besides the abundance of chocolate, there’s also a hefty amount of eggs in these cookies — six, to be exact.
The dough whips up in the mixer like fluffy chocolate mousse.
But you need to work fast. The soft dough will stiffen up considerably rather quickly almost to the texture of hardened fudge. What you want to do before you start making these cookies is have all your cookie sheets ready to go in front of you. Once your dough is mixed, start scooping balls of dough onto each cookie sheet until you have them all filled. Then, flatten each cookie dough slightly. If you have enough cookie sheets, this is the time to pull them all out for use, rather than trying to reuse the sheets after baking a batch.
The cookies bake up with crackly tops like a brownie. In fact, the cookies taste very much like intensely, deep, dark chocolatey brownies with a tender, slightly chewy texture. One whole cookie alone is supremely rich and decadent.
If you’re a chocoholic, no doubt these cookies will prove your downfall. In the best of ways, of course.
Chocolate Truffle Cookies with Crackly Crust
(Makes about 30 cookies that are 3 1/2 inches in diameter)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound plus 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Generous 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chunks
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl, sift together flour, cocoa and baking powder. Stir in the salt and set aside. Placed chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of very hot but not boiling water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water), stirring occasionally until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from water and allow to cool 5 to 10 minutes.
Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment and cream on medium speed until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on medium speed until eggs are incorporated.
Increase speed to high and beat for a few minutes until mixture is very light, creamy, and pale in color, scraping bowl down as needed. Add melted chocolate and vanilla extract and mix just until combined. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Start scooping cookies as soon as you finish making the batter. The batter is very soft at first, but it starts firming up quickly as it sits, which will make it more difficult to portion. The easiest way to portion the cookies is with a 2-ounce ice cream scoop. Pack the scoop only about three-quarters full. Or use a scant 1/4 cup or 1 1/2 ounces of cookie dough for each cookie.
Scoop cookies onto parchment-lined baking sheets, placing them about 2 inches apart. Flatten each mound of dough slightly with your hand. (Tip: You can use a dampened hand, because the dough is sticky.)
Soon after the cookies are scooped, put them in the oven and bake them. If you are baking in batches, don’t refrigerate the scooped dough, but leave them at room temperature. These cookies will not spread properly if the dough is chilled first.
Bake cookies until they are evenly cracked all over the tops and softly set, 14 to 16 minutes, rotating pan about halfway through the baking time. If you have 2 pans of cookies in the oven at the same time, also switch them between the racks.
Remove pans from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Allow cookies to cool completely before removing them from the baking sheets with a metal spatula. They stick to the paper a bit, but you can scrape them off with a sturdy metal spatula easily enough.
From “The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook” by Tom Douglas and Shelley Lance
More Chocolate Cookie Recipes to Bake: Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Ginger
And: Macadamia and Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies
And: Chocolate Cherry Cha-Chas
And: See’s Original Chocolate Chip Cookies
And: Thomas Keller’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
