Soft and Fudgy, Chocolate Chip Cookies

 I love chocolate in any form. Whenever I need to bake something, I always migrate towards anything to do with chocolate.  Baking being my passion, I am always on the lookout for either cookies or cake. This recipe is inspired from an amazing site I came across: http://www.justsotasty.com/.

This double chocolate soft cookie is a chocoholics dream.  They are filled with dark chocolate chips oozing with every bite, with a fudgy, soft bite to it. No crumbs to deal with when biting into it; just a fudgy, pillowy soft, oozy chocolaty dream!!!

When creating deep, dark chocolate flavor, cocoa powder is the best and easy to use ingredient, with no messy chocolate to melt.  I always prefer to use dark cocoa powder; any good brand will do.  I have used Hersheys as well as Cadburys and love using both.

These cookies use lots of butter and brown sugar for the soft texture.  Chilling the dough is very important.  Most of my cookies, I chill otherwise, they tend to bake into flat discs and you do not want them in these.  Chilling makes them maintain height and these add to the fudgy, soft bite.

Time to bake!!

Soft and Fudgy, Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes 30 cookies)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 10 to 12 minutes

Totol time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter : 10 tbsps (room temperature)                                          

Granulated sugar : ¼ cup

Brown sugar: ¾ cup

Large egg: 1 (room temperature)

Vanilla essence : 2 tsp

Flour or maida: 1 cup

Cocoa powder : 2/3 cup

Baking soda : ½ tsp

Salt : ¼ tsp

Dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips: 1 cup (more if you want more gooey bites!!)

Ingredients:

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. You can either sift them together or use a wire whisk to mix.  Keep aside.

In a large bowl, add the butter and sugars.  Beat well with a hand mixer for a couple of minutes till well creamed and soft.

Add the egg and vanilla essence and beat again till well combined.

Add half of the dry flour mixture and carefully blend on slow speed till just mixed in.  Add the rest of the dry mixture and beat just till combined.  Do not over beat.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius.

Grease a baking pan or sheet or line with parchment paper.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator.  Make 1 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Cool for a minute on the baking pan, remove and transfer to cooling racks.

(This is the point where I bite into a warm, gooey, fudgy cookie and attain chocolate nirvana!!!)

Cool completely and store in airtight containers.

Please try this amazing cookie recipe and let me know how they turned out.

Note:

Do not overbake these cookies. Check at 10 minutes, if they have cracks on the top, remove them from the oven. Overbaking will make them hard.

As much as possible, use the best quality butter,cocoa and chocolate chips for the best tasting cookies.

The dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days.  You can freeze  part of the dough so you can enjoy fresh, soft cookies again another day. Just thaw them for 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Using a whisk to mix the dry ingredient gives the same results as sifting.

Handy Tip:
To bring eggs and butter to room temperature in a hurry:

Place cold eggs in warm water for 5 minutes.

To soften the butter, microwave for a few seconds; just keep watch as they must be removed before they start to melt. Tricky, but if you are in a hurry, it works.