Double Chocolate Fudge Cookies

First and foremost I want to apologize for the most horrible pictures I took for this recipe. Problem is, I can't find my camera, I had my camera SD card and I used my daughter's camera which is a Vivitar 3-5 mexapixel camera and has no antishake in it. I did them best I can taking photos. Which didn't do any justice for these cookies because they are fabulous!

To explain these cookies best is saying like it's a little brownie without the mess of cutting and and only having so many before you really feel guilty. These delicious cookies satisfy fudgey and chocolatey cravings and are sure to impress. I will be making these again and hopefully with my camera when it's found.

I added Christmas colored plain M&Ms to bring them into the Christmas season. You can use any season's colored M&Ms to this recipe. I also separated some of the dough and added Peppermint Extract since this would make a great Chocolate and Peppermint mix. It was like eating Chocolate Peppermint Hot Chocolate! So good and full of great flavor. If I could of found the mint chocolate chips I would of added them in the Peppermint dough to really tie in the chocolate peppermint. How I distinguished them between the two was putting Red M&Ms on top of the regular cookies and Green M&Ms on the Peppermint ones as you will see!

This dough is thick so using a stand mixer would be best. Of course if you don't have one you can certainly mix as much as you can with a hand mixer then do the rest by hand. It gets really thick when it's all together with the flour. I also used 1 cup of Bread flour and 3 1/2 cups of regular All Purpose Flour. I was hoping to get a chewier texture but I think it would of just been fine doing all of the dough with All Purpose Flour so if you don't have Bread Flour just use regular flour.

So let's start the yummy goodness process....

Double Chocolate Fudge Cookies
4 sticks of Butter cut into cubes
2 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa
4 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
5 cups of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 package of Plain M&Ms (regular or seasonal colors)

Method with Step By Step Photos:

Mix your Butter and Sugar together until light, fluffy and well incorporated.

Add in the Special Dark Unsweetened Cocoa and incorporate well.

Add your Flour, Salt and Baking Powder

Mix well, this is when you will start hearing that strain from your mixer, you can certainly do the rest by hand but my stand mixer handled it well.  She's such a Good Strong Mamma!  This is when I added the Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and Christmas Colored Plain M&Ms and stir in.  So Pretty!

I used a cookie scoop and scooped 2 times and rolled the amount into a ball.  Well actually this is when my daughter rolled them balls.  I am so glad she helped me.  Sofia of course made the whole process eventful when she dropped an egg.  She felt bad but I told her I've done it many times!  Here she is wishing you Peace, she had fun rolling.  We rolled some and kept them as balls and baked them.  These produced a really thick cookie and took longer to bake.  Then other that we rolled we slightly flattened them which cut the baking time and made a more bigger but still thick fudgey cookies!  Here is where we applied Red M&Ms on top of the cookies that weren't with Peppermint Extract.

Bake in the oven about 15 minutes or so if you do not flatten them.  Be careful not to over bake, they will begin to have that slightly cracked look when they are just about ready.  This is when you pull them out and leave them on the cookie sheets to cool.  This will finish the baking process on the cookie.  If you flatten them, bake for about 12 minutes again keeping an eye on them.  You can touch them but don't burn yourself!

With the separated dough add just a tad of peppermint extract if you like and top them with green M&Ms.  It's an optional step but I thought it was a great twist!  I think next time hopefully if I find them I would like to add some Mint chocolate chips or chopped up Andes Mint Chocolate.

Let your cookies cool and then devour.  I put some of the regular ones aside and plan on bringing them to my mother in law who just had hip replacement surgery.  Putting them in a cellophane bag with some ribbon would make a great gift and a really great Get Well gift!  I used yellow ribbon to make it cheery!

So in the end, I really think these cookies are great.  The embody true chocolate flavor.  I had a great time with my daughter.  I am hoping even if she doesn't know it, I am trying to create memories for her like I had with my mom when she cooked or baked.  Hopefully someday Sofia will look back and remember.

Side Note:  Store these cookies when cooled in a tightly covered container to prevent hardening and drying out.

Wishing you Sweet Chocolate Dreams,

Annamaria