Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

When cooking, rarely do I ever measure out the exact amounts of each ingredient that I’m using, which can make it difficult to share my recipes. A lot of what I cook is based on estimation depending on how much broth I’m cooking or how big the roast is. Everything is done by feel and taste since I don’t always knows the exact weight of all the drumsticks or the pork chops, although I’m getting a lot better now, especially knowing that I need to capture the quantities I’ve used in order to share it with all my readers.

When it comes to baking you can’t use that same approach. Baking is much more methodic and requires exact measurements to ensure that the results achieved are exactly as intended. So when I find a good recipe I tend to adhere to it pretty closely, changing it only slightly to make it more of my own. Sometimes I might lower the amount of sugar used because I personally find it a bit sweet or change the type of flour or sugar used to accommodate what I have at home. However, the recipe that I used for this year’s Food Blogger Bake sale sounded perfect and therefore I really didn’t change the amount or type of ingredients, but instead I altered the preparation and cooking time for a chewier cookie. You can find the original recipe here. Let me know what you guys think!

Nutritional Tidbit: It seems a bit of a stretch to call a cookie healthy but these do have some nutritional benefits with the use of dark unsweetened chocolate. Dark chocolate has been shown to contain antioxidants which protect our bodies from harmful free radicals. It also has a good amount of minerals required by your body. Although sources say that it may lower LDL and cardiovascular risk, we should still remember that chocolate is a treat and like all other foods, eaten in moderation.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
4 oz dark unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 325ºF and line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and spices. You can choose to use the ones suggested or add in additional flavours like nutmeg or cardamom. Feel free to experiment.

In a microwave safe bowl heat up the butter and unsweetened dark chocolate for 30 secs at a time until melted, stir the mixture each time until they’re well blended. I know a lot of recipes call for unsalted butter but I prefer to use salted butter and just remove the salt from the recipe, if you’re using unsalted butter just add in 1/2 tsp of salt!

In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla. Pour in the chocolate mixture and stir until all the ingredients are well blended together.

Slowly fold in the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. This may take a bit of elbow grease but I prefer to do it by hand to avoid over mixing.

Add in the chocolate chips and continue to fold the batter until they are evenly distributed throughout.

Roll the dough in to roughly 1 1/2 inch balls, place on the parchment about 1 inch apart. Slightly press down the batter since the dough itself doesn’t spread much while baking.

Put in the oven for roughly 8-10 mins depending on how chewy you like your cookies. I prefer to mine half-baked so I take them out closer to 8 mins.

When you remove the cookies from the oven, remove them from the baking tray and allow to fully cool. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week (if they last that long).

Recipe makes about 2 dozen.

Enjoy!

A group of food bloggers around Calgary also thought it would be a great chance for us to share our holiday baking recipes with the Sweet Holiday Blog Hop. Check out these delicious recipes for your Christmas baking!

Food Mamma - Candy Cane Bark
Bakers Beans - Orange Gingerbread Cookies
Dish N The Kitchen - Salted Pistachio Sablés
Julie Van Rosendaal - Sticky Toffee Pudding
Because I Like Chocolate - Vegan Nanaimo Bars
Heathers Eats - Butter Tarts
Miss Foodie's Gourmet Adventures - Hazelnut Shortbread
Merry About Town - Nutella Pretzel Cranberry No Bake Cookies