TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

This week's Cookies with Dorie recipe is for Chocolate Chunkers, selected by Claudia of Fool for Food. Okay,okay, it's really Tuesdays with Dorie, although since I joined this awesome club, four out of my first five recipes have been cookies. That's fine with me, of course, because I love cookies! And cookies don't frighten me in the way that, say, brioche does. As it turns out, this week's recipe is not really a cookie at all, but an insanely decadent cluster of fine chocolates, nuts and dried fruit. When I first read the recipe, I thought it was the oddest cookie recipe that I had ever seen. Now granted, it is not like I am some cookie-recipe connoisseur. Before joining TWD, I would have characterized my baking habits as "quarterly," not "weekly." But I know an unusual cookie recipe when I see one, and this, my friends, is an unusual cookie recipe. Only one third of a cup of flour. And a measly three tablespoons of butter!! I am certain that the spell checker on Dorie's cookbook typewriter started smoking, convulsing and beeping furiously in confusion when it encountered a quantity of butter that small in one of Dorie's recipes.

What this recipe has is chocolate, and lots of it. While I do not like single-purpose grocery runs, I ended up making one to pick up the chocolate that I needed for this recipe. I had forgotten my list and was not 100% sure of exactly what kind of chocolate I needed, but I was pretty sure that it was something like "every kind of chocolate," and I was right! Bittersweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, powder chocolate, solid chocolate, chocolate bars, chocolate chips -- all in my shopping cart. And that's ALL that was in my shopping cart. Just chocolate. I got several strange, concerned looks from fellow shoppers, and even though I happened to be in a very peaceful place emotionally while doing this shopping, the whole experience got me thinking that this should really be a Life Rule: if you see a woman alone at the grocery store with nothing but 42 different kinds of chocolate in her cart, slowly . . . back . . . away.

Chocolate, as far as the eye can see:


I am so glad that I followed the tips on the P&Q board and melted really good quality bittersweet chocolate with the unsweetened chocolate and butter. I used Sharffen Berger. This forms the foundation of the cookie, so I'm glad that I didn't skimp here. On the other hand, I used regular old Toll House white chocolate chips, and they tasted great to me.

Look at this dough. Are you kidding me?

It was amazing. I got a little dough happy, and had to walk away and pop an Altoid to make me stop.

The finished cookies were irresistible.


After producing a string of flat cookies (and flat cakes, for that matter) since joining TWD, I am proud to present photographic evidence that my cookies were not flat:

As you can see, they measured in at a generous 1 1/4 inches high, although I will officially list them at 2 inches for NBA draft purposes (that one's for you, David).

I was rather, um, effusive last week discussing the Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops, so I'll try to restrain myself a bit here so as to not get the reputation of being the yappy little puppy dog who loves anything. These are truly spectacular cookies, however, and it is killing me to remain cool about them when what I really feel like doing is renting a plane with a banner on the back that says "MAKE CHOCOLATE CHUNKERS. PAGE 70, DORIE GREENSPAN'S 'BAKING'," and flying it back and forth along the shoreline. The recipe is not a normal cookie recipe, and the finished product is really not a normal cookie. It is rich, complex, and as elegant as a cookie can possibly be. The nuts and raisins add interest and balance out the intense chocolate nicely. I used toasted pecans, but I have no doubt they'd be wonderful -- heck, maybe even better, if that's possible -- with salty peanuts. Warning: this cookie is extremely chocolatey, and richer than Warren Buffet. I would not dream of eating one of these without a tall glass of milk at the ready to chase it down. Thank you for picking these, Claudia!