chocolate chunks

Flourless Triple Chocolate Cookies

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Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and while it’s not my favorite holiday, it is a perfect excuse to make and enjoy loads of sweet treats.  It’s also a good excuse to enjoy an especially  nice meal with your sweetheart, either at home or out.  Candles and roses required of course.

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In anticipation of Valentine’s Day I’ve decided to spend the next couple of weeks baking and sharing some delicious Valentine’s Day goodies.  By the time it rolls around my husband is probably going to be sick of chocolate, but that’s ok.  I’ll pick up the slack.  I have this amazing ability to endure baked goods and sugar beyond what is considered normal.  What can I say, it’s a gift!

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These are not your typical chocolate cookie since they’re flourless (gluten free!) and end up being very crunchy on the outside with just a little bit of gooey middle.  Whole Foods makes a similar cookie that has walnuts which I kind of love.  You could easily adds nuts into this cookie if you’d like.  The pure chocolately goodness of them without nuts is wonderful, though.  The cocoa powder, semi sweet and milk chocolate chips makes these triple chocolate, but you could opt for just one kind of chip, or go crazy and add in dark chocolate chunks as well.

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This cookie batter/dough comes together in no time and while you can use a stand mixer, you don’t need one.  The ingredients are simple and you likely have them all in your kitchen right now.  You definitely need to bake these cookies on parchment paper or a nonstick silicon mat.  They stick a little, even to the parchment, so use a stiff spatula (or a small offset one) to get underneath the cookies as you’re taking them off the sheet.  This way you won’t lose any chocolate pieces.  That would be a tragedy.

Watch out for little hands.  They’ll swoop down when you least expect it and steal these.  I let her eat the whole thing by the way.  Right before dinner.  Great parenting over here.

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Flourless Triple Chocolate Cookies

From Food 52

Makes 24-30 cookies

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup good cocoa
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chunks or chips
  • 1 1/4 cup milk chocolate chunks or chips
  • 1/2-1 cup nuts, toasted and chopped, optional
  • Sea salt flakes, optional

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment (you’ll need more parchment for each batch).
  3. Whisk together powdered sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt.
  4. Beat in the egg whites until well combined, then mix in vanilla.
  5. Fold in chocolate chips/chunks and nuts if desired.
  6. Spoon batter, 2 rounded teaspoons per cookie, onto your cookie sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart for spreading.  I found I could fit 6-8 cookies per sheet without any problems.  Sprinkle each cookie with salt if desired.
  7. Bake for 12-14 minutes until cookies look just set and dry on top with some cracking.  Let cool on the pan for a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Chunk Pudding Cookies

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In college a friend gave me a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that uses pudding mix in the dough resulting in an extra soft and tasty cookie.  Of course I lost the recipe in one of the 4 moves I’ve made across Texas in the last 5 years.  I came across this recipe this past weekend and decided to see if they were like Ashley’s.

I found the recipe on Kraft foods website. Here is the link.

They were not quite the same, but they were good.  I used some high quality milk and white chocolate in these cookies which made them extra special.  Good chocolate really does make a difference.  Chopping off a block of chocolate instead of using chips also makes a difference in the texture of the chocolate in the finished cookie.

I used half butter and half shortening in these, which makes the cookies more sturdy and causes them to spread less, but I will use all butter next time.  Some cookies can take the half shortening short cut without much of a sacrifice of flavor….but not this cookie.  For some reason they tasted too fake to me and too much like a grocery store cookie instead of a homemade one.

All of that negativity doesn’t make these cookies at all un-tasty.  I really liked how soft and chewy they were and absolutely loved the white and milk chocolate chunks.  Crazy good.

Chocolate Chunk Pudding Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temp
  • 1/2 cup shortening (or butter)
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1 package (3.4 oz) vanilla pudding mix
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 taespoon baking soda
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 6 ounces chopped milk chocolate
  • 4 ounces chopped white chocolate
Directions
  1. Heat oven to 375°F.
  2. Beat butter, sugars, dry pudding mix and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until blended.
  3. Add eggs and baking soda; mix well.
  4. Gradually add flour, beating after each addition until well blended.
  5. Stir in chocolate.
  6. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough, 2 inches apart, onto baking sheets.
  7. Bake 8 to 10 min. or until golden brown. Cool 3 min. on baking sheets. Remove to wire racks. Cool completely.