CHEWY CHOCOLATE COOKIES THAT ARE ONLY SLIGHTLY OVER THE TOP
A grown-up, bittersweet interpretation of a childhood favourite
Back when I was in high school, there was a cafe I loved for its over-thetop sweets. Billowing cakes towered over the counter, the cream cheese frosting between the layers thicker than the cakes themselves. They had golden coconut macaroons as big as my palm, and soup bowls full of rice pudding, mounded with thick, cinnamon-flecked whipped cream.
But to my teenage self, the best treats of all were saucer-size dark chocolate cookies loaded with white chocolate chunks and pecans. Fudgy in the center, with a brittle, crackling crust, they were sort of like the corner squares from a pan of brownies — both chewy and crisp.
Even better, any white chocolate bits that seeped through the cookie batter and hit the baking pan caramelised, turning butterscotch-rich. Who cares if the cookies were sweet enough to make my gums ache? I loved them fully and completely.
This recipe is a more grown-up interpretation. All the components are there — the chewy chocolate cookie filled with nuts and caramelised white chocolate. But I’ve tempered the sweetness by mixing white chocolate chips with bittersweet chocolate chips, and by melting bittersweet chocolate into the batter instead of the usual semi-sweet.
This does mean you’ll have to track down chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa solids, ideally 60-72%. The higher the percentage of cocoa solids a chocolate bar has, the less sugar it contains. This isn’t going to make a huge difference with a small amount of chocolate, but when a recipe calls for a whopping half-pound, sweetness level matters.
If you can’t find bittersweet chocolate, you could reduce the amount of granulated sugar in the recipe. But keep in mind that sugar not only adds sweetness, it also contributes to the chewiness factor.
You’ll still get a great cookie, but a less glossy, brownie-like one.
Speaking of chewy, another change I made from the original cookies was to add dried cherries. The sweet-tart pockets remind me of the raisins in a Chunky candy bar, though I suppose that doesn’t seem very restrained or grown up. But it’s very, very good. Dried fruit haters can just leave the cherries out, or substitute more nuts or chocolate chips.
And cookie eaters of all ages and predilections be advised: Dunking these in your beverage of choice will always be the right and entirely over-the-top way to go.