Chocolate Cookies: Best when frozen

The next time I visit anyone who lives in the Carolinas, I'm making them take us to Harris Teeter.

Chocolate Cookies 1¼ cups sugar 1 cup butter 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups flour ⅓ cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ tsp salt (if butter is unsalted) 1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips, if desired Melt butter in a large bowl, getting it very hot. Then whisk in the cocoa powder and let stand until it comes back to room temperature and firms up. (If desired, you can skip this step and just stir the cocoa powder into everything else. But getting the butter hot and then letting the cocoa sit in it draws out more chocolate flavor.) Heat oven to 375°. Have paper or foil-lined baking sheets ready. Cream sugar and butter. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add flour, baking soda, and salt (if using), stirring just until mixed. (If using an electric mixer, mix in the flour on low speed.) Stir in chocolate chips, if desired. (These cookies are so rich on their own, you might want to bake half the dough and add chips to the rest. Then you can try it both ways.) Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2-inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375°F for 8-11 minutes, or until set. They will not look done. Remove them from the oven anyway. Cool 1 minute on the pan before removing. Source: Harris Teeter sugar bag

This recipe makes a lot of cookies, so naturally I cut it in half. This meant I get to inaugurate my new kitchen toy: a one-sixth measuring cup! I'm so glad its first use is chocolate.

Someone 3D printed this for me. It's not not dishwasher safe, but I am willing to welcome it anyway. I only had to send off the dimensions, which another friend had worked out for me. I do know enough math to figure out the dimensions of a cylinder with given volume x, but the rounded bottom threw me off. And I wanted it to be a bit rounded at the bottom because who wants to gouge ingredients out of a sharp corner? 

Anyway, for those who either have 3D printers at home or know someone who does, here are the dimensions so you can have your very own: 

Moving on to everything else we needed to measure, we soon found out why Harris Teeter printed this recipe on their sugar labels. You use half the bag to make these cookies.

The dough was reassuringly firm. I've found that if cookie dough is too sticky to handle, it inevitably bakes into a runny mess. But these cookies were actually acting like cookies instead of future hot dough puddles.

The recipe says to drop by rounded spoons. But our dough was firm enough to shape into balls, so I did that with a few of them. The balled cookies came out just a little bit smoother on top, but I don't think it matters enough to bother. The spooned ones were just fine. They might even be a bit cuter with their crinkled tops.

Balled on the left, spoon-dropped on the right.

These were like Harris Teeter's brownies but in cookie form. They're not an intense chocolate, but more like a chocolate-flavored toffee. They were so crisp on the outside you'd almost think I rolled them in sugar first. Contrary to the official ingredient list, I think these were better without the chocolate chips in them. These cookies were, as I've heard people say, "plenty good enough" without stirring anything else in.

Also, as we found out after putting the extras away, they are amazing right out of the freezer. It's nice to have a frozen chocolate lift on hand, if a bit dangerous to know it's there.