Dark Chocolate-Espresso-Hazelnut (or Not) Chewies: A New Reason for Living

It's cookie baking season. That one special month when eating cookies is a requirement of happy living. Well, cookies or pies, but I baked cookies this weekend, so that's what we'll worry about. And I had my eye on these lovely bits of decadence, which of course means that I couldn't make such perfection without fracking up the ingredients.

So, first up: the chocolate. Measuring the chocolate in cups threw me - I usually go by ounces. I had a 3.5 ounce bar of 70% cocoa dark chocolate and a 4.4 oz bar of milk chocolate. I used all of the dark and half of the milk and called it a day.

Also, you know what is a most helpful ingredient when you want to bake cookies?

Sugar.

Yes, dear ones, I didn't check my baking cabinet before I started melting the chocolate, confident that the 5 pound bag of sugar I imagined in my head would be there.

Imagine my surprise when it wasn't. So I substituted Splenda and called it another day.

Also? Had to use decaf because The Professor has a definite reaction to caffeinated coffee - it's called "The Heart Bursting Problem" around here.

Then there's the fact that I'm not a huge fan of nuts in cookies. If they're good enough, I'll deal with it. So I made a few cookies before I mixed in the nuts - which was convenient because I only had 1/2 cup of chopped nuts - and I used macadamia instead of hazel because apparently the Big Brains at the grocery store (read: Wal-Mart) don't think anyone around here would be interested in hazelnuts.

And Holy Chocolate, Batman, these cookies were good! One of the top 5 of all time, for sure The batter was good, the cookies - even the ones with nuts! - are good, the rum-spiked eggnog was good...

The majority of these were destined to go home with The Bestest Friend. Next time: no nuts at all. They just interrupt all the chocolate goodness.

I only got 12 good-sized cookies out of this (I probably could have gotten 2 more out of the remaining batter, but I didn't want to dirty another pan and The Professor wanted to eat the batter, not the cookies, and I do try to make him happy every once in a while - which is what led to his heart going into sugar-overload making him think he was having a heart attack, which means I might kill him one day by making him happy. Maybe I should stop doing that?).

Anyway - I don't need 40 cookies laying around calling my name at 2 AM.

Not that they ever have or anything. Cause that would just be weird.

Original recipe from Michelle at Thursday Night Smackdown

Dark Chocolate-Espresso-Hazelnut Chewies
1 3/4 c. dark chocolate of your choice
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 eggs
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. espresso grounds
1/4 c. AP flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
3/4 toasted chopped nuts. I like the hazel, but you can mix it up.

Bonus points for this being super-easy to put together:

Melt some chocolate:



Mix it into some other ingredients, and add some nuts:


Spoon, bake, cool:


And finally - eat.