CocoChew Cookies

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These are an excellent source of dietary chocolate, presented in a pleasingly chewy and easy-to-eat package. They are also very easy and fast to make.

Ingredients

All measures are given in grams (g), so get yourself a decent digital scale for the kitchen and cut your washing up. I use a Pelouze "postal scale" (which I got in about 1996, long before digital scales started appearing in cooking stores), it is sold in office supply stores and will weigh up to 2000g (about 4.5lbs) in 2g increments. These days there are some good, and perhaps less expensive, alternatives to be found in most stores that sell cookware. This works well for most ingredients (including liquids), just put your mixing bowl on the scale, hit the "zero" button and pour everything into the one bowl. For the very small quantities like salt and baking powder I have a second scale (A Salter model 1250) that weighs up to about 250g in 0.1g increments (I got this from LondonDrugs who sell it as a "dietary scale").

210g white flour
230g white sugar
64g brown sugar
48g cocoa powder (you can increase this for more chocolate taste)
7g baking powder
5g salt
60g margarine (typically a half a stick) or butter, softened (microwave 30 sec on 3/10ths power)
2 whole large eggs (usually about 110-120g)
5g vanilla (optional)
small amount of water

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400F (I use convection mode)
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. Stir in margarine until the mixture is well combined and crumbly. Add eggs and (vanilla if desired) and stir just until the dough comes together. I find this works very well in a KitchenAid stand mixer on minimum speed for about a minute, just give the ingredients a short stir with a fork before putting the bowl on the machine, otherwise you can get a cloud of cocoa powder flying everywhere and making a big mess.
If the ingredients do not come together just add a bit of water, about a teaspoon at a time, while mixing. You want all it all to make a firm an slightly sticky ball that you can break off lumps and roll between your palms without too much sticking to your hands.
Roll the dough into 1.5 inch balls by hand. Place the balls about 2 inches appart onto a cookie sheet (say 12 per sheet) that has been sprayed with non-stick spray (or rubbed with butter). I like to use a little silicone basting brush to apply the butter, this brush can then be washed in the dishwasher.
Bake for 9 minutes, until just set around the edges but still soft in the middle.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Take some to work and make lots of friends.
Makes 20-26 cookies depending on the size of a 1.5 inch ball.

Modifications

I have found that adding a bit of jam or a marichino cherry to the top of the cookies (just make a depression with your thumb and spoon in a bit of jam) can make a very nice variation. In the picture at the top of this page I used raspberry jam and marichino cherries.

You can just use all brown sugar (294g) instead of the brown and white mixture.

For even more chocolate add 100-200g of chocolate chips to the dough at the end of the mixing.

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