Brownie Cookies

  Another cookie from the Fine Cooking Cookies, Brownies, Bars & More is this recipe for Brownie cookies. They are quite good, but a little fussy to make and I wouldn’t start them unless you have time to spare.

  Both my daughter and I made them and neither of us had them crack. Don’t know if this was because we changed the chocolate, or just the way we made them. However, they still tasted fine and are a nice cookie for  the family or for guests.

  The recipe does call for unsalted butter, but I used regular butter and still added the amount of salt called for. I rarely buy unsalted butter, and find the salted butter works without any problems for me. If you want to vary the taste of these try changing the extract and the nuts or omitting the nuts.

Chocolate Brownie Cookies

 These do not spread much so can be placed fairly close together

Yield about 4 dozen

 2 ounces (¼ cup) butter

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped*

3 large eggs at room temperature

¾ cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 ½ ounce (⅓ cup cup) all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon table salt

4 ounce (1 cup chopped toasted pecans

•  Put a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 350°F. Line 2 cookies sheets with parchment (or butter and flour them.)
•  In a double boiler over simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate. Stir to combine; let cool.  With a stand mixer with whisk attachment beat eggs and sugar to a ribbon consistency. 3 to 4 minutes. Removing bowl from mixer Stir in cooled chocolate mixture and vanilla until combined. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Stir flour mixture and nuts into the batter then let the batter rest for 5 minutes. 
•  Spoon the batter into a heavy duty zip-top bag. Snip one bottom corner to create a ⅔ inch diagonal opening. (or use a pastry bag with a #4 tip). For each cookie pipe 1 tablespoon batter onto the lined cookie sheet.
•  Bake the first tray until the cookies are puffed and cracked (mine did not crack) and the tops barely spring back when pressed, 8 to 10 minutes. The cracks should be moist but not wet. Cool on rack.

*Since bittersweet chocolate is hard to find here, I used 4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate and 8 ounces of semi-sweet. This seemed to taste fine.