More chocolate, in the form of a cookie

For the past few weeks, I have had to stay up for work until as late as 1 am. I wouldn't have any actual work to do, but I would just have to stay up in case the client needed something. It's incredibly hard to stay up that late when you have nothing to do.

Thankfully, I could do this from the comfort of my own home and usually I would pass the time watching TV or movies or surfing the web. But this would make me tired and make it even more difficult to stay up (I did once fall asleep--shhh, don't tell).



After a successful baking attempt recently, I thought, why not bake to pass the time? And I even had all this cocoa powder from the chocolate cupcakes that I wanted to use up.


While doing a search on the difference between Dutch-processed and regular cocoa powder, I found the Joy of Baking website and this recipe for chocolate chocolate chip cookies. It was perfect--I had all of the ingredients and it sounded heavenly.


I used bittersweet chocolate instead of semi sweet, and I used my tiny ice cream scoop and didn't flatten the cookies like the recipe said to, but I think that was okay. I left them in the oven for the minimum 14 minutes but I think in retrospect, I should have taken them out earlier considering my version of the cookies were much smaller.


Of course, the minute I put in the first batch, we got an email saying that they didn't need anything else for the night. I still had more than half of the cookie dough left to go. Blerg.


In any case, it was a great success. I managed to make exactly 60 small cookies (this is quite the accomplishment--usually my last pan of cookies consists of some odd number like 7, one of them being a little larger than the others). They were a little crunchy on the outside and brownie-like in the center--kind of soft and dense. And I think because I used bittersweet chocolate, they had a very rich taste but were not too sweet.

I brought these to work the next day--my coworkers loved how the cookies were so chocolate-y but not sweet. I don't think I've ever gotten such raves about something I've made before. Well, I do have the kindest group of coworkers so that could have been part of it.

The trial that had been keeping me up so late is over now (complete victory!) so this could very well be the end of my late night baking sessions. Famous last words...