Triple Chocolate Cookies
Yield | 26 (1 cookie each) |
Meal type | Dessert |
Website | America's Test Kitchen |
Ingredients
- 3oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
- 7oz tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 2 teaspoons teaspoons instant coffee
- 2 teaspoons teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 Large large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
1. | |
Melt unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chips, and butter in heatproof bowl set over saucepan of simmering water, stirring frequently, until completely smooth and glossy. Remove bowl from pan and set aside to cool slightly. | |
2. | |
Stir coffee powder and vanilla extract together in small bowl until dissolved. Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium-high speed until very thick and pale, about 4 minutes. Add vanilla-coffee mixture and beat until incorporated, 20 seconds. Reduce speed to low, add chocolate mixture, and mix until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. | |
3. | |
Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. Using large rubber spatula, fold flour mixture and semisweet chips into batter. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes until batter firms up (it will more closely resemble thick brownie batter than cookie dough). | |
4. | |
Meanwhile, adjust two oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Using 1 heaping tablespoon batter per cookie, place cookies 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets (see photo, right). Bake until cookies are shiny and cracked on top, 11 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheets top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking time. Transfer baking sheets to racks and cool cookies completely, on baking sheets, before serving. |
Note
The classic triple-chocolate cookie combines unsweetened, bittersweet, and semisweet chocolates. Balance is key in these soft and chewy cookies. They should be packed with serious chocolate flavor, but shouldn’t be a case of death by chocolate.
The unsweetened chocolate adds intense, earthy chocolate flavor; the bittersweet chocolate adds a sophisticated, rich chocolate flavor; and the semisweet balances the two more bitter chocolates. With more than a pound of chocolate in the recipe, the methods we typically use for cookies and brownies produced cookies that were too wet and didn’t hold their shape. We got the best results by beating the eggs and sugar together until fluffy, then adding the melted chocolate and mixing in the dry ingredients last. Beating the eggs and sugar for a few minutes gave the batter more structure and resulted in cookies with a pleasantly crisp, meringue-like shell.
Premium bittersweet bar chocolates were too rich (and too greasy) for this recipe. Melted bittersweet chocolate chips, which contain less fat than chocolate bars, worked much better. They improved the batter by making it less fluid, yet also added the same grown-up, not-too-sweet flavor as more expensive bar chocolates. We also added a little coffee powder and vanilla to bolster the chocolate flavor. The cookies retain their fudgy texture when cooled directly on the baking sheet, rather than on a baking rack.