Hi again! I’m back! Did you forget about me? ? I definitely would’ve so don’t worry. I guess like everyone else all of the ‘busyness’ has stopped during COVID and I’ve actually had some time… And I got a new phone – all of these photos were taken on an iPhone 11, can you believe it?! So I decided to come back over and do a post for you all! It’s been a crazy year so far hasn’t it ae? It makes me wonder sometimes when people look back at this time in the future, maybe 2020 will be synonymous with crazy times or the year the world kinda crapped its pants! Lol who knows but it’s certainly been a wild one so far. Luckily, living in New Zealand, our case incidence has been pretty low and me and my family have all safe and healthy so we’ve come through so far unscathed which is very lucky.
Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to find all sorts of weird and wonderful things to do at home to fill my time! Luckily I’ve been able to work from home during the day so that fills up eight hours or so ?. Do you want to guess my other activities? Baking, baking and more baking! And some gaming, I got reeeeeeeeal into The Sims 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5 guys, it’s actually so much fun! Haha. But in terms of baking, I’ve been trying so many different recipes. Loads of bread, all different types, cinnamon rolls, cakes, slices, and, of course, cookies! If you follow me on Instagram (@chocoholicbake) you can see all of my weird and wonderful creations, I’ve been posting heaps of baking trials on my stories too!
So, talking about cookies… These cookies are the bomb! I’ve been wanting to try black cocoa for aaaaaaages but for a while you couldn’t get it in New Zealand and then I remember you could but it was pretty expensive. Then the other day I saw an ad for a New Zealand brand that had started selling it and so I did some research and found that Honey and Cocoa were selling a 500g bag (a pound for Americans) of black cocoa for $15 which was pretty good so I decided to finally try it! This recipe is based on one I found on Cloudy Kitchen but I changed it up a bit. Crispy on the edges, soft in the middle, rich and dark and suuuuuuuper chocolatey, these cookies are just honestly delicious. If you’re looking for something a bit different, and you like rich but still slightly sweet then these cookies are for you. Bored and need a nice and easy sweet treat to make? These cookies are for you! Yum yum yum these ones even have peanut butter in them, but you could always swap it out for more white chocolate if you wanted.
Look at that inside! It’s crazy dark and I love the contrast between the black cocoa dough and the white chocolate. I also put dark chocolate and peanut butter ‘chocolate’ in there, you know, just in case white chocolate wasn’t enough! With the peanut butter ‘chocolate’, it’s melted while chocolate mixed with melted peanut butter and then refrigerated until it’s hard again and then you break into pieces. It’s pretty quick and easy for a really yummy result, but if you don’t want to do that bit you could either use peanut butter chips or just more white chocolate and it would still be good. ? Let me know if you make them, tag me on Instagram, I’d love to see your versions! Happy baking everyone.
Black Cocoa Triple Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
- 170g (1.5 sticks or 6oz) butter, softened
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar (soft)
- 2 (large/size 7) eggs
- 2 tspn vanilla essence or paste
- 1 1/3 cups plain flour
- 2/3 cup black cocoa powder (you can use regular dutch cocoa too)
- 1 tspn baking powder
- 1 tspn salt
- 1/4 tspn baking soda (use 1/2 tspn if using regular cocoa powder)
- 1 1/12 cups white chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup dark chocolate, chopped
- 1/4 cup peanut butter (optional)
Instructions
- You’ll need to do this first step and then refrigerate for at least half an hour before making the rest of the cookie dough. Place half a cup of the chopped white chocolate into a microwave proof bowl with the peanut butter. Microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each one until the white chocolate is completely melted. This should take around 2-3 minutes. Be careful not to burn the chocolate!
- Pour the chocolate mixture into a shallow baking tray (with sides), or dish, or container or anything where you’ll be able to pour the chocolate in and get a nice thin layer. Pour the chocolate in and smooth the top if necessary, it should only be about 2cm or 3/4in thick. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and put in the fridge to chill for between 30 mins – 2 hours. Once chilled, break the chocolate into pieces about the size of your thumb and store in a ziplock bag (if you’re not using it all, or right away).
- Place the butter and the sugars either in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl and use an electric hand beater. Beat the butter and the sugar on a high speed until creamed, pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until combined after each addition. Then add the vanilla and beat on a medium speed until everything is combined.
- Add the flour, black cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and baking soda to the butter mixture. Mix on a low speed until all the dry ingredients are nearly combined and there are streaks of flour remaining. Then add the white chocolate, the ‘peanut butter’ chocolate and the dark chocolate to the mixture. Mix everything until combined, if needed you can mix the chocolate in by hand to ensure that it’s evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Now everyone’s favourite step… You’re going to need to refrigerate the dough for at least 1-2 hours before rolling/scooping and baking. You can leave it up to 48hrs at this stage if you cover the bowl tightly in the fridge.
- Once the dough has chilled, leave it on the counter whilst you prepare everything to let it warm up a little bit. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease (if needed) and line 3-4 baking sheets/trays with either baking paper or silicone baking mats. Depending on the size of your oven, you’ll need to do 3-4 rounds of trays of dough as you’ll need to space them out.
- For this step, you can either use a cookie scoop, a tablespoon or your hands. You want about 2 Tbspn of dough for small cookies and 4 Tbspn of dough for large cookies. The ones in the photos are small cookies. If you’re using a cookie scoop, just scoop the dough and place around 5cm (2in) apart on your trays. There should be 9-12 balls on large trays and 6 on small trays. If you’re using a tablespoon or your hands, get a rough 2 Tbspn of dough in your hands and quickly roll into a ball and place on the tray.
- Bake each tray of cookies between 10-11 minutes, definitely no longer than 11 minutes! The cookies should be set and look just crisped and baked on the outside but it’s fine if they’re still a little jiggly, they’ll set more after they’ve come out of the oven.
- Cool the trays on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, then slide the cookies onto the wire rack to cool completely. Time to enjoy!! Yum! The cookies will keep for up to a week in an airtight container on the counter.
