Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies-Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies Week #3

Eating this cookie is a beautiful experience! (Please double click on the picture to fully understand) If you love chocolate, then you don't want to miss out on this one - you will not be disappointed with this cookie. I have recently joined up with some great ladies who are making one cookie or bar cookie per week until Christmas, hence the title 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies. I joined up a couple weeks into it, so this is week number three. This means nine more weeks of cookies. Sounds delicious, doesn't it?

I think this is a great opportunity to try some new cookie recipes and decide what to add to your Christmas cookie platter. These chocolate chocolate chip cookies will definitely be on my Christmas cookie platter. In fact, I made six cookies only, and I am freezing the rest of the dough and saving it to bake at Christmas.

I have been cooking a lot of Nigella recipes from Nigella Express and I have really loved them all. I wanted to try one of her cookie recipes and am pleased to say that this cookie recipe is my favorite recipe in the book so far. This recipe starts with melted chocolate, then adds cocoa and 2 cups of chocolate chips. These are a delicious chocolaty, sweet and salty cookie that is out of this world delicious, especially right out of the oven!

Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson
4 oz semisweet chocolate (I used milk chocolate here)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick soft butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg, cold from the fridge
2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels or dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325F. Melt the 4 oz. of chocolate. Measure the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Cream the butter and two sugars in another bowl. I use my freestanding mixer, itself a source of comfort to me. Add the melted chocolate and mix together. Beat in the vanilla extract and cold egg, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate chips. Scoot out 1/4 cup-sized mounds - an ice cream scoop and a palette knife are the best tools for the job - and place on a lined baking sheet about 2-1/2 inches apart. Do not flatten them. Leave to cool on the bakign sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool. Makes 12 big cookies.

Notes/Results: There were a lot of different things about making this cookie dough. First I noticed that Nigella called for a cold egg. I'm not sure why (maybe someone can share) a cold egg, but it worked out great. This baffled me because I was taught to always bake with room temp ingredients. Also, there is only 1 cup of flour in this cookie recipe. This caught my attention and I immediately knew it was going to be a fudgey-type of cookie - yum! This cookie is absolutely divine right out of the oven. It is chocolaty, sweet, and a tad on the salty side. It is easily one of the best cookies I have ever ate. I also recommend following Nigella's directions and making the cookies the 1/4 cup size. This leads to crispy edges and chewy and ooey gooey insides and makes for a very happy cookie monster!! I highly recommend this cookie. Thanks Nigella!!

Click on any of the blogs below to see what all the other cookie monsters made this week!
Megan of My Baking Adventures
Barbara of Barbara Bakes
April of Abby Sweets
Megan of Megan's Cookin
Denise of Keeper Worthy Recipes