I had all the ingredients and pulled the chocolate chips out of the fridge. There was one rather clumpy bag. The milk chocolate chips must have gotten melty in the car. The semi-sweet chocolate chips were the ones in the recipe that had to be melted, so it was just my bad luck that the ones that had to remain as chips were now big clumps. I had to take an ice pick to the milk chocolate.
This comes from one of my favorite sections in Bon Appetit, the RSVP. If you are not familiar with it, readers write in asking for restaurant recipes and Bon Appetit prints them.
This particular recipe yields 3 dozen cookies. They are rich and chewy, something to satisfy a true chocoholic craving. I have had a few and wish I had made more.
Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies
courtesy of Bon Appetit (prior to 2005)
Ingredients
36 walnut halves for top of cookies
1 cup of chopped, toasted walnuts
6 oz chocolate chips
2 eggs
1/4 cup plus 2 tbs of butter, room temp
1/4 cup plus 3 tbs of sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used special dark)
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
8 oz semi sweet chocolate (melted and cooled)
additional melted chocolate for drizzling (optional)
Prepare two baking sheets by lining with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, sift together cinnamon, flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another bowl beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until smooth. Pour in the 8 oz of melted chocolate and mix until completely blended. Then fold in the flour mixture. Lastly, mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.
Once all is combined, scoop out a tablespoon of batter and drop onto baking sheet. I used a small melon baller as a scoop. Continue placing additional scoops onto baking sheet about 1 inch apart. After the sheet is full, press one walnut half in the middle of each cookie.
Bake in the oven for about 11 minutes. Cookies are done when they are still soft to the touch but appear dry and cracked on the outside. Remove and place sheet on rack to cool for 5 minutes. Then remove and place each cookie on rack to cool completely.
If you decided to drizzle the cookies with chocolate, place wax paper under the cooling rack. Then dip fork tines into the chocolate and wave over the cookies to form a zig zag pattern. Chocolate will need to set before serving or storing.
Repeat the process of forming, baking and decorating the cookies until there is no more batter left. Then it is time to relax and enjoy some chocolate!