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camwynIngredients:
1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (1 1/2 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder - I used King Arthur Flour's burgundy cocoa, which is Dutch processed and uses alkali
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups packed (10 1/2 ounces) brown sugar
Note: for the More Info Than You Really Wanted edition of this, about an ounce of this should be dark brown sugar that has dried into a brittle but breakable lump, three to four ounces should be reasonably soft and flowy light brown sugar, and the rest should be light brown sugar that has hardened into a brick that refuses to break off pieces but looks small enough that one could be forgiven for thinking a little extra attention will break it up properly
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
Note: the More Info Than You Really Wanted edition used Baker's unsweetened chocolate, broken into individual units and then cut in about two pieces each by rocking a knife across the middle and catching as many of the splinters as possible along with the larger chunks. They were not particularly finely chopped by any standard known to man. Don't sweat the chopping on these.
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar
½ cup (2 ounces) confectioners' sugar
Procedure:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in bowl.
2. Congratulate yourself, this is looking easy. Ignore the quietly cackling sinister cloud just behind your shoulder. What does a cloud know anyway.
3. Put the brown sugar in a glass bowl. Poke at the biggest lump with your spoon a bit.
4. Try cutting it in half with the bench knife/dough scraper.
5. That didn't work. Try scraping some of the surface off.
6. Jeez, this is gonna take forever. Get the butter knife and try to bore a hole into the middle.
7. That didn't work too well either but at least you made a mark. Dampen a paper towel, drape it over the lump, and microwave the whole thing for thirty seconds.
8. Well, it's not coming apart yet, but the surface is soft. Maybe if it spends some time absorbing moisture that'll help. Add the three eggs, letting each one trickle over the surface of the lump.
9. Add the espresso powder. And the vanilla.
10. Poke the lump some more.
11. That didn't help. Can you bore any decent holes with the butter knife?
12. Did the bench knife work?
13. Can you scrape the soft goopy outer layer off into the rest of the mixture using the butter knife? -- good. Do that. Some more.
14. Wow, that's a lot of lump left. Can you break anything off?
15. Is anyone looking?
16. As long as no one is looking, wash your hands, dry your hands, grab the egg-blop-covered lump, and start scraping as much of the surface as you can without losing your grip. Bore a few more holes into the lump, get egg into those holes to soak in, and flip the lump over. Bore a few more holes, then try the scraping again, because you've had the other side of the lump in the egg blop this whole time.
17. Repeat as much as you can, trying every so often to break off lumps based on how deeply and thoroughly you were able to bore holes into the lump.
18. Give up for the moment and go microwave the chocolate and butter together for three minutes at 50% power. Continue to scrape the lump and attempt to break it apart the whole time, except you should stop about every 45-60 seconds, make a token attempt at washing your hands, and stir the chocolate and butter together a bit. Then resume microwaving and scraping.
19. Once the chocobutter is melted and smooth, take it over to the bowl of sugar and egg blop.
20. The lumps look smaller than they did? Maybe breaking the big one up let it absorb more moisture and dissolve. That's a good sign, right?
21. Can you add the chocobutter and stir things up very vigorously? Maybe that'll help.
22. Are you absolutely sure nobody is looking?
23. Fish the remaining lumps out of the bowl with a spoon if you can or your fingers if you can't. Put them in a microwave-safe measuring cup. Go nuke them for 20-30 seconds and pray nobody sees you.
24. Pull the cup out before the mixture gets too cooked or bubbly looking and stir the contents really forcibly with a butter knife.
25. Put the cup down and wipe your crap off the microwave and surrounding counter so nobody sees visible signs of your shame.
26. Dump the contents of the cup back into the main bowl and stir good and hard. Convince yourself you've finally managed to either dissolve or break up the lumps adequately.
27. Fold the flour mixture into the chocobutter egg blop bowl carefully and keep folding it until there are no dry streaks left.
28. Panic slightly at the sight of a very visible lump of brown sugar. Wash your hands and fish the lump out with your fingers after several attempts to test it with a spoon fail. Eat the lump when nobody is looking.
29. Set the bowl aside for ten minutes. Wonder why the original recipe had you start the oven and then just leave it running all this time. Wipe up the finger marks you have left EVERYWHERE by now. Make a pathetic token effort at wiping up the outside of the bowl. Go wash any dishes, spoons, whisks, spatulas, measuring spoons, bench knives, butter knives, cups, etc. while you wait.
30. Put the granulated sugar in one bowl and the powdered sugar in another.
31. Grab a tablespoon. Scoop up a heaping helping of the dough or whatever it is at this point- it should be sticky but shapeable and you're going to roll it between the palms of your hands so I really hope you washed them again.
32. Roll the stuff into a ball, then roll it around in the granulated sugar until it's covered, then roll it in the confectioner's sugar, then put it on one of the baking sheets. Don't bother squishing it.
33. Realize you made that one too big and be a little more careful with the sizing on all of the others. And by 'all of the others' I mean 'the twenty-one remaining cookies you'll be making, because this recipe is supposed to produce twenty-two respectably sized cookies, no, not twenty-four, twenty-two, unless you like your cookies small and sad, I guess'.
34. You've got twenty-two sugar-covered chocobutter egg blop flour and cocoa balls on your sheets? Good. Put one in and bake it for six minutes. Turn it around. Bake it for six minutes more.
35. Take the tray out and let it cool while you bake the other tray for six minutes, turn it, then bake for six more minutes.
36. Cookies should be allowed to cool completely on the trays but are safe to eat pretty much as soon as they're cool enough to touch, and are really good that way as long as you don't think about how many times your hands were in that egg blop because you just couldn't admit you'd made a bad call on using up the old solidified sugar.
1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (1 1/2 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder - I used King Arthur Flour's burgundy cocoa, which is Dutch processed and uses alkali
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups packed (10 1/2 ounces) brown sugar
Note: for the More Info Than You Really Wanted edition of this, about an ounce of this should be dark brown sugar that has dried into a brittle but breakable lump, three to four ounces should be reasonably soft and flowy light brown sugar, and the rest should be light brown sugar that has hardened into a brick that refuses to break off pieces but looks small enough that one could be forgiven for thinking a little extra attention will break it up properly
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
Note: the More Info Than You Really Wanted edition used Baker's unsweetened chocolate, broken into individual units and then cut in about two pieces each by rocking a knife across the middle and catching as many of the splinters as possible along with the larger chunks. They were not particularly finely chopped by any standard known to man. Don't sweat the chopping on these.
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar
½ cup (2 ounces) confectioners' sugar
Procedure:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in bowl.
2. Congratulate yourself, this is looking easy. Ignore the quietly cackling sinister cloud just behind your shoulder. What does a cloud know anyway.
3. Put the brown sugar in a glass bowl. Poke at the biggest lump with your spoon a bit.
4. Try cutting it in half with the bench knife/dough scraper.
5. That didn't work. Try scraping some of the surface off.
6. Jeez, this is gonna take forever. Get the butter knife and try to bore a hole into the middle.
7. That didn't work too well either but at least you made a mark. Dampen a paper towel, drape it over the lump, and microwave the whole thing for thirty seconds.
8. Well, it's not coming apart yet, but the surface is soft. Maybe if it spends some time absorbing moisture that'll help. Add the three eggs, letting each one trickle over the surface of the lump.
9. Add the espresso powder. And the vanilla.
10. Poke the lump some more.
11. That didn't help. Can you bore any decent holes with the butter knife?
12. Did the bench knife work?
13. Can you scrape the soft goopy outer layer off into the rest of the mixture using the butter knife? -- good. Do that. Some more.
14. Wow, that's a lot of lump left. Can you break anything off?
15. Is anyone looking?
16. As long as no one is looking, wash your hands, dry your hands, grab the egg-blop-covered lump, and start scraping as much of the surface as you can without losing your grip. Bore a few more holes into the lump, get egg into those holes to soak in, and flip the lump over. Bore a few more holes, then try the scraping again, because you've had the other side of the lump in the egg blop this whole time.
17. Repeat as much as you can, trying every so often to break off lumps based on how deeply and thoroughly you were able to bore holes into the lump.
18. Give up for the moment and go microwave the chocolate and butter together for three minutes at 50% power. Continue to scrape the lump and attempt to break it apart the whole time, except you should stop about every 45-60 seconds, make a token attempt at washing your hands, and stir the chocolate and butter together a bit. Then resume microwaving and scraping.
19. Once the chocobutter is melted and smooth, take it over to the bowl of sugar and egg blop.
20. The lumps look smaller than they did? Maybe breaking the big one up let it absorb more moisture and dissolve. That's a good sign, right?
21. Can you add the chocobutter and stir things up very vigorously? Maybe that'll help.
22. Are you absolutely sure nobody is looking?
23. Fish the remaining lumps out of the bowl with a spoon if you can or your fingers if you can't. Put them in a microwave-safe measuring cup. Go nuke them for 20-30 seconds and pray nobody sees you.
24. Pull the cup out before the mixture gets too cooked or bubbly looking and stir the contents really forcibly with a butter knife.
25. Put the cup down and wipe your crap off the microwave and surrounding counter so nobody sees visible signs of your shame.
26. Dump the contents of the cup back into the main bowl and stir good and hard. Convince yourself you've finally managed to either dissolve or break up the lumps adequately.
27. Fold the flour mixture into the chocobutter egg blop bowl carefully and keep folding it until there are no dry streaks left.
28. Panic slightly at the sight of a very visible lump of brown sugar. Wash your hands and fish the lump out with your fingers after several attempts to test it with a spoon fail. Eat the lump when nobody is looking.
29. Set the bowl aside for ten minutes. Wonder why the original recipe had you start the oven and then just leave it running all this time. Wipe up the finger marks you have left EVERYWHERE by now. Make a pathetic token effort at wiping up the outside of the bowl. Go wash any dishes, spoons, whisks, spatulas, measuring spoons, bench knives, butter knives, cups, etc. while you wait.
30. Put the granulated sugar in one bowl and the powdered sugar in another.
31. Grab a tablespoon. Scoop up a heaping helping of the dough or whatever it is at this point- it should be sticky but shapeable and you're going to roll it between the palms of your hands so I really hope you washed them again.
32. Roll the stuff into a ball, then roll it around in the granulated sugar until it's covered, then roll it in the confectioner's sugar, then put it on one of the baking sheets. Don't bother squishing it.
33. Realize you made that one too big and be a little more careful with the sizing on all of the others. And by 'all of the others' I mean 'the twenty-one remaining cookies you'll be making, because this recipe is supposed to produce twenty-two respectably sized cookies, no, not twenty-four, twenty-two, unless you like your cookies small and sad, I guess'.
34. You've got twenty-two sugar-covered chocobutter egg blop flour and cocoa balls on your sheets? Good. Put one in and bake it for six minutes. Turn it around. Bake it for six minutes more.
35. Take the tray out and let it cool while you bake the other tray for six minutes, turn it, then bake for six more minutes.
36. Cookies should be allowed to cool completely on the trays but are safe to eat pretty much as soon as they're cool enough to touch, and are really good that way as long as you don't think about how many times your hands were in that egg blop because you just couldn't admit you'd made a bad call on using up the old solidified sugar.
