As promised earlier, here is the chocolate indulgence cookie. It is a slice and bake cookie in which a log of dough is rolled in chocolate cookie crumbs prior to baking. The wonderful flavor comes from being packed with chocolate chips, more cookie crumbs and toasted walnuts.
If you are familiar with the Brooklyn Blackout cake, the cookie envelopes the same flavors that exist in the cake. That makes me think about when New York really did have their blackout and everyone was walking home in the dark. Having this cookie on hand at the time probably would have made things easier. One bite would have transported them directly to dark Chocolate town. There just are some moments in life when there is no better place to be....
Blackout Cookies
courtesy of Good Cookie Cookbook
Yield- 42 cookies
Ingredients
3/4 cup coarsely chopped and toasted walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips (I used mini or you can chop after measuring)
3/4 cup chocolate wafer cookie crumbs
1/2 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
9 tbs or 1 stick and 1 tbs butter (room temp)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
If you choose to chop your chocolate chips, pulse in food processor 20 or 30 seconds. Place the chocolate chips in a bowl and stir in 1/2 cup of the cookie crumbs. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, sift some of the dry ingredients together-salt, baking powder, baking soda, flour and cocoa. Set this bowl aside also.
Take out an electric mixer or stand mixer. With the mixer at medium speed, cream together both sugars and butter in a large bowl. After two minutes of beating, your batter will be at the correct consistency. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the vanilla extract. Add the egg and beat the mixture again until well blended. Turn off and remove the mixer.
With a wooden spoon, fold sifted dry ingredients into the batter until it just turns to dough. There should not be any flour remaining in the bottom of the bowl. Then stir in the walnuts and chocolate/cookie crumb mixture until distributed throughout the dough.
Lightly flour a work surface (not too much because to dough has to have cookie crumbs stuck to it). Empty the dough from the bowl onto the surface.* With floured hands, roll the dough into a 13 inch long log that is 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Then sprinkle the remaining cookie crumbs in a rectangle below the length of the log. It should measure 13 X 2. Roll the log in the cookie crumbs, pressing lightly. Wrap the log in plastic wrap, twisting to cover the short ends of the log and place in fridge to chill for at least 2 hours and no longer than 3 days.
Once the dough has been properly chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Take the log out of the fridge and place on work surface. With a sharp knife, cut the log into 1/4 inch slices and place on baking sheet about 1 1/2 inch apart. Due to the nuts and chocolate chips, cutting may be not result in round perfect slices and pieces may come apart. Do not worry, just push the pieces back together to make a round shape the best you can. The dough will spread when baking anyway.
Place one sheet of cookies in the oven and bake for 11-13 minutes. The cookies are done when the dough has lost its sheen or shiny look. The cookies will still be very soft when you remove them, however, they will firm up as they cool. Place cookies on rack to finish cooling.
*Should you want cookies that are more uniform and perfect in size, there is another method to form the cookies. Just roll the dough between two pieces of wax paper prior to chilling. Dough should be 1/4 inch thick. Once chilled, use a cookie cutter to cut out rounds. You can skip the crumb coating or try greasing or wetting the bottom edge of the cutter and then dipping it into the crumbs prior to cutting out each cookie. I have not tried the cut out method.