In total, I have baked five types of cookies when I did not really have the intention of baking any when I started. I am trying to live up to the better angels of my nature rather than the evil part of me that sets out, at the start of any new year, with the aim of destroying people’s resolve. All along, people have believed that I baked from the goodness and kindness of my heart. How very deeply mistaken they were.

New Year’s Resolutions are for chumps, and I can prove it. Cookies will eventually break most people down. With that in mind, I have restrained myself (or thought I had) by baking in limited doses. Until today… I just kept going. Perhaps it is because I have been reunited with my beloved KitchenAid mixer; perhaps it is just the mania that comes with being ultra-productive in general.

I made the Nutella peanut butter cookies I mentioned in another post. I made the raspberry-oat bars to which I alluded in another post. I made ANZAC biscuits, which (it was pointed out to me) would be more appropriate for the 26th of the month… but so be it! I can just make them again! I am on such a roll with the whole shortbread thing, so I made more regular shortbread. And finally, I made some chocolate cookies that are studded with some mint and dark chocolate chips.

“I know it’s not the right thing/and I know it’s not the good thing/but kinda I want to…” (Nine Inch Nails) And is anyone really going to hold it against me? Really?

Recipe:
1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
2.5 to 3 cups flour
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 bag chocolate chips (in this case some dark chocolate and mint chips I brought back from my last Stateside hop)

Preheat oven to 175-180C

Beat butter and sugar together well. Add egg, then vanilla. Then mix in the dry ingredients. When you have achieved the consistency you want for the dough, mix in the chocolate chips by hand. (I often use less flour and more cocoa to make them more chocolaty.)

Roll dough into balls and flatten slightly. Bake on parchment-lined baking trays for 10-12 minutes.
This is basically the same recipe I used for chocolate mint cookies before (when I had some Andes baking pieces). It works very well.

I will definitely do it again if I am not struck down by lightning for my evil ways.