Double Chocolate Cookies

I've been feeling like a bit of a chocoholic lately. 

I can say with certainty that it is completely the fault of a friend of mine who recently introduced me to the world of fine handmade chocolates. I won't go into much detail today, but I will tell you that there's a stack of polycarbonate moulds sitting on my kitchen counter, and there is some fancy schmancy single origin chocolate currently on a truck somewhere headed my way.

So why am I settling for cookies when I could have my own homemade caramel ganache filled chocolates? Well simply put those chocolates have all been eaten, and it'll be days before I have time to take another crack at pretending to be a chocolatier. 

But trust me these cookies have enough chocolate in them to keep me going until then.

Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon coarse salt (Martha's recipe only calls for 1/2 but be brave and put in more)

8oz of semi sweet chocolate (1/2 chopped coarsely, and 1/2 chopped into chunks)

1/2 cup butter

11/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla*

1/2 cup crushed walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. 

Melt coarsely chopped chocolate and butter in double boiler (or bowl over simmering water in a pot). Combine melted chocolate with sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients, the remaining chunks of chocolate and nuts if using. Stir well until combined.

Drop handfuls of cookie dough onto cookie sheets lined with parchment spaced 2 inches apart. 

Bake until cookies are flat and cracked (but still soft) about 15 minutes. Let cool on wire rack.

*Wanna hear a funny story? Well there was this one time (ok it was today...) that I reached for the vanilla extract, put a teaspoon into my cookie batter, and as I stirred I thought "Gosh that bourbon vanilla sure has an interesting aroma...wait a minute..I know that smell....it's root beer!" 

Yup. I put root beer extract in my cookies. It's not actually that noticeable, but I don't recommend it.

I do however recommend keeping similar looking bottles away from each other in your pantry.