Yummy Chocolate Cookies

When I opened The New Best Recipe to make the Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, I spied another recipe that I had sadly overlooked - a recipe for Thick and Chewy Double Chocolate Cookies. How could I have missed this??? I have tried Martha Stewart's Grammy's Chocolate Cookies and her Dark Chocolate Cookies - both were very good but neither had that super-rich chocolate taste that comes from using melted chocolate in the batter.

Double Chocolate "Almond Joy" Cookies

Like the two Martha recipes, this recipe also calls for Dutch process cocoa. The Martha cookies look much darker, however, because I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa which is extra dark, almost black. For this recipe, I used Penzeys Dutch process cocoa. In addition to the cocoa, this recipe also calls for one pound of melted chocolate - oh yum!

I couldn't, however, leave well enough alone and try the recipe as is. I've been wanting to make an Almond Joy-type cookie by taking a chocolate cookie and adding coconut and almonds, so I decided that it was as good a time as any. I added 2 cups of shredded coconut and 1 cup of chopped, roasted almonds to the batter. If you do add anything to this batter, add it quickly - this batter sets up rather fast, going from soft to fudgey in no time (no refrigeration required) - it was all my KitchenAid could do to muster a few weak turns of the paddle before I decided I'd better turn it off for fear of burning out the motor. As a result, the nuts were fairly unevenly distributed, but no worries. On the plus side, the way the dough sets up to a fudgey consistency makes it quite easy to work with - not gooey and unmanageable like others I've worked with before.

Although I am left wondering what these cookies turn out like had I not put in the coconut and almonds, I can say that they work very well with these additions - they are delicious. They are not exactly chewy, but they are not as soft and fudgey as some cookies come out when made with melted chocolate. The texture is hard to describe - somewhat soft and fudgey but not cakey or gooey. In order to make it closer to an Almond Joy, the dough could perhaps use another cup of coconut, but I think you'd need to cut back on the sugar a bit. The amount of almonds seemed just about right, but again, it was hard to tell since the dough was not pliable enough to get an even distribution.

My husband thinks these cookies are fantastic and so do I. I also know, however, that I will have to try them at least twice more - once with more coconut to see if I can achieve something a bit closer to an Almond Joy and once with no additions so that I can better evaluate this recipe as it was written. Ah well, you have to do what you have to do..........