Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
Why I Love This Recipe
This is a Martha Stewart recipe. I recently re-subscribed to Everyday Food (happens to be one of my favorite food magazines) and I was thumbing through it the other day when I saw a picture of chocolate cookies. After a brief once over I thought "Why not? I have all the ingredients." When you're in the mood to bake something new....the best recipes are the ones where you have all the ingredients in the pantry....right?
Ingredients You'll Need
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter (I never seem to have this on hand so I used salted butter. And even though the picture only shows 1 stick....I did realize my error and grabbed another stick from the fridge)
1 3/3 cups sugar (divided)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Directions
Preheat your oven to 400' F placing your racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper
In a medium mixing bowl, sift (and for this recipe, I think sifting rather than "whisking" is very important....cocoa powder and other ingredients like to remain lumpy.....and sifting will really break those up) where was I? Oh...sift together the flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a larger mixing bowl, beat together the butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until fluffy....this should take about 2 minutes on medium speed.
Add the eggs and beat until combined.
Turn the mixer speed down to low and gradually (and I mean g r a d u a l l y, I'm still finding cocoa flour mixture in places other than the bowl) add the flour mixture...beating until combined. Now you will have a bowl of rich, dark cookie dough.
In a little bowl, mix together the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon and chili powder.
Get out a tablespoon and scoop out some dough, roll it up into a ball and drop it into the chili mixture
Place the balls about 3" apart from each other
Bake for a total of 10 minutes.....halfway through the baking time....rotate the cookie sheets.
Let the cookies cool on the sheets, on a wire rack for about 5 minutes or so before attempting to remove them. Then, allow to cool completely on a wire wrack.