Name: Decadent Dark Chocolate Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 454 g coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate (about 70%, preferably Valrhona); 57 g unsalted butter; 85 g whole-grain dark rye flour; 4 g baking powder; 3 g fine salt; 200 g large eggs (at room temperature); 430 g muscovado sugar; 5 g vanilla extract; Good quality sea salt such as Maldon or flaky fleur de sel (for topping)

To make a long story short, if you love chocolate, you must try these dark chocolate cookies. If you love chocolate fudge, brownies, or chocolate ganache - you must try these cookies. They are superb. The inside is gooey, chocolaty, and chewy, and has a texture resembling chocolate ganache. Try having them with a latte. So good! These cookies are decadent. Without any doubt, this is the best chocolate cookie recipe I've ever tried.

I am a big fan of Chad Robertson's, and I was thrilled to recently get another book of his that I had not yet had in my cookbook collection. The book is called Tartine Book No. 3: Modern Ancient Classic Whole. It focuses on whole grains and is full of great information on whole grains and recipes that use them.

As with Chad's other books, I found it refreshing and was tempted to try just about every recipe in the book. I will, eventually. I started off with the Salted Chocolate Rye cookies - the recipe calls for my favorite Valrhona chocolate. It also uses rye flour, something I'd never used in cookies but love using in bread and baguettes.

As I mentioned above, this recipe recommends using Valrhona chocolate, which is more expensive than a grocery store, but fine chocolate makes these cookies amazing. I am using the same 70% Valrhona chocolate in my Chocolate Baguette Recipe.

It's not just the taste, the aroma of fine chocolate alone is mind-boggling. As you bite into one of these cookies, the whole room gets filled with a strong yet very pleasing and irresistible cocoa butter aroma.

I brought some of these to work, and someone said they were 'better than sex'. Quite a compliment.

A few notes on this recipe

Chad Robertson recommends chilling the dough for about 30 minutes until just firm to touch and that the longer you refrigerate it, the harder it will be to scoop. True. However, after making a couple of batches, I prefer to have the dough harder to scoop. Here is why. Softer dough that is easy to scoop spread out in the oven more than I cared for, resulting in thinner and less moist cookies.

Sure, if cooked slightly less, they won't come out dry. I tried that, and it was better, but I still liked them more when thicker. The harder dough, which I shaped into balls by hand, did not spread out as much and gave me the thickness that I was happy with.

The recipe calls for a few flakes of good-quality salt on top of each cookie. I searched a few stores before finding Maldon salt, but I am very happy I did. It truly makes a difference in taste. For my first batch, I used a few flakes, as per the instructions, and felt it was not enough. Then again, how many are few? I put a few more the next time, as shown in the picture above, which gave me a very good balance between sweet and salty taste.

This recipe also used something new to me - Muscovado sugar. I was surprised I did not know about it before. I was able to find it in the local health food store.

It looks like regular brown sugar, but it is quite different. It tastes like toffee candy to me. Quite amazing. If you can't find it, I'd substitute it for dark brown sugar; they resemble each other flavor-wise.

This recipe is adapted from Chad Robertson's Tartine Book No. 3: Modern Ancient Classic Whole book.

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Decadent Dark Chocolate Cookies

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: dark chocolate cookies

Prep Time: 30

Cook Time: 20

Total Time: 50

Servings: 1 cookie per serving

Calories: 150kcal

Author: Victor

Ingredients

454 g coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate about 70%, preferably Valrhona
57 g unsalted butter
85 g whole-grain dark rye flour
4 g baking powder
3 g fine salt
200 g large eggs at room temperature
430 g muscovado sugar
5 g vanilla extract
Good quality sea salt such as Maldon or flaky fleur de sel for topping

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Place a saucepan filled with 1 inch of water over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Set a heatproof bowl over the simmering water, taking care that the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water, and melt the chocolate and butter together, stirring occasionally. Once melted, remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
Whisk together the rye flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
Place the eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip on medium-high speed, adding the sugar a little bit at a time until all the sugar is incorporated. Turn the mixer to high and whip until the eggs have nearly tripled in volume, about 6 minutes.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the melted chocolate-butter mixture and the vanilla. Mix to combine, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, then add in the flour mixture until combined. At this point, the dough will be very soft and loose, which is normal; it will firm up as it chills.
Refrigerate dough until it just firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. (The longer you chill the dough the harder it is to scoop.)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the fridge and scoop it with a rounded tablespoon onto the baking sheets, shaping the balls of dough into rounds and spacing them 2 inches apart. Top each mound of dough with a few flakes of sea salt, pressing gently so it adheres.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the cookies have completely puffed up and have a smooth bottom and rounded top. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let cool slightly (the cookies may flatten a bit), then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. The cookies will keep up to 3 days in an airtight container.