Fudgy Chocolate Cookies

These fudgy chocolate cookies have a satisfyingly chewy texture that enhances the chocolate experience.

There Will Be Chocolate

Ladies and gentlemen, if I say that I am a cookie man, you will agree. I spend more time during any given day thinking about cookies and working with cookie dough than most people would consider reasonable. And yet, this overall experience with cookies gives me a unique perspective on the issue of cookies.

To let you know what kind of cookie we are dealing with here, I should go over the different types of cookies you can make. In all, there are eight different kinds of cookies:

• Drop Cookies - like chocolate chip cookies, these are formed by dropping the dough onto the cookie sheet.
• Refrigerator cookies - these cookies are made from a hard dough and do not rise very much when baked.
• Molded cookies - Made from a hard dough and do not rise at all when cooked. Think thumbprint cookies.
• Rolled cookies - Like ginger bread cookies or sugar cookies. The dough is rolled out and then cut into shape with cookie cutters.
• Pressed cookies - Spritz cookies that are formed using a cookie press.
• Bar cookies - brownies and 7-layer bars are good examples of these cookies.
• Sandwich cookies - two cookies that are held together with a filling.
• Fried cookies- like rosettes.

Of all the cookies that are listed, the type that is most likely to depend on a levener to give the cookie a rise is the drop cookie. Usually, the drop cookie depends on two types of leveners: mechanical and chemical. The chemical levener usually used for drop cookies is baking powder followed by baking soda and then, less often, cream of tartar.

The mechanical levener used for drop cookies is called the creaming method. This involves beating the butter and sugar together at great speed until the butter is light and fluffy. The lightness and fluffiness comes from tiny pockets of air being formed as the sugar granules gouge the butter. When the batter that is made with this creamed butter gets hot in the oven, the air in the pockets expands and the cookies rise.

But look at the recipe below for fudgy chocolate cookies. It has no butter or baking powder at all and yet it is still a drop cookie that will rise when baked. What we use instead of the butter and levener is egg whites. The egg whites will form a kind of light meringue that the rest of the ingredients are added to. When baked, the cookie rises and forms a very nice cracked top and delicate crumb. The resulting chewy chocolate cookie goes great with a big ol' glass of milk or, as I prefer, a nice cup of tea.

Fudgy Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites
• 10 ounces confectioners' sugar
• 4 ounces cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee
• 1 tablespoon water
• 4 ounces chopped pecans
• 3 ounces chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
3. Using your stand mixer, beat the egg whites until foamy; a medium peak is good here.
4. Mix the sugar, cocoa powder, flour, and coffee into the egg whites.
5. Add the water and beat on low speed to mix.
6. Then mix on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until the mixture thickens.
7. Fold in the pecans and chips.
8. Using a tablespoon, spoon the mixture onto the cookie sheets about 1 inch apart.
9. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
10. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to continue cooling.
11. These are very soft cookies. Let them cool quite a bit before trying to transfer them to the rack.

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