I’ve mentioned before that I’m not much of a chocoholic these days, but in my younger years, I was very firmly in the “chocolate is the king of all desserts” camp.  Nine-year-old me loved nothing more than to devour a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream in a single sitting.  One of my favorite treats, whenever I could find them on offer, was double chocolate chip cookies.  To my child brain, a cookie that was both itself chocolate AND contained chocolate chips was pretty much the height of decadence.

Even though I now tend to prefer baked goods with lighter and brighter flavors (like almond and citrus) or that are more brown butter/caramel-centric (more to come on that front in future posts), every now and again I still get a mad chocolate craving that only a double chocolate cookie can satisfy.

Enter this recipe, which has its roots in two recipes from Martha Stewart’s Cookies cookbook–Grammy’s Chocolate Cookies (p. 75) and Milk-Chocolate (aka Double Chocolate Chunk) Cookies (p. 79)–with some of my own tweaks added in for good measure.  In particular, I like using mostly brown sugar, rather than all white, to add extra chewiness to the cookie.  I also like to double the amount of chocolate chunks because when my inner chocolate demon wakes from its usual slumber and demands to be fed, a cookie that’s not full-throatedly chocolatey just won’t cut it.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 oz.) unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I do 1/2 cup dark brown, 1/2 cup light brown, and 1/2 cup white)
• 12 oz (3 bars) semisweet baking chocolate, coarsely chopped (One bar is for melting and incorporating into the batter, and the other two are the chunks that you’ll mix in.)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325F.  Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Place 4 oz. of chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl with the butter and set over a pot of boiling water, stirring constantly until melted.  Set aside and let cool slightly.
3. While the butter/chocolate mixture is cooling, cream the three sugars with the eggs and vanilla, beating 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
4. Once the butter/chocolate mixture has cooled a bit (so as not to scramble the eggs), add it to the egg mixture and beat to combine.
5. Add the dry ingredients and again beat to combine, then mix in the remaining chocolate chunks.
6. Using a medium-sized cookie scoop (or a table spoon if you’re lacking in scoops), scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, placing them about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart to allow for spread.
7. Bake approximately 13 to 15 minutes, until cookies have flattened out and tops are crackly.
8. Allow to cool a couple of minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

And there you have it!  Next time you’re looking to placate your own inner chocolate monster, maybe give these babies a whirl.  But also maybe invite a friend over to help save you from yourself…