You know you want one…

I have never baked “from scratch” cookies before. I’m a great cook and can improvise recipes with pretty decent success. Baking has always been too precise for me, so I avoid it, or cheat by using something that came in a tube with a photo of a chubby cartoon sailor on it.

Fast forward to today.

My office is having a cookie exchange on Monday and I decided to make “double chocolate chunk” cookies. One of the rules is they must be homemade. So homemade they are. I scoured the interwebs for a recipe last night. Something simple but delicious. I didn’t want to spend hours making these or have to source ingredients from sherpas. I found a really good recipe.

Of course I can’t leave well enough alone, so I made this recipe my own and ended up with quintuple chocolate chunk cookies. There are two types of cocoa and three different chocolates in there. Not to mention a ton of butter, flour, two kinds of sugar, vanilla, secret ingredients, and so on.

And I made approximately 1.5 times as much dough as I needed. I baked what’s needed for the exchange (and a few left over), but kept a good portion of dough to freeze as well. Here’s a picture of one batch cooling:

I had to try one, and yes they are good.

Crispy on the outside, a little chewy and soft inside. And chocolatey without being too sweet or too rich. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I might have to try this again … well after the sugar coma wears off.