My daughter came home from school with a little challenge.  She had bought cookies at school.  Fudge Chocolate Chip cookies.  She handed the cookie and her purloined package (they are supposed to throw the trash away, of course) and very cutely said that she wanted me to recreate these cookies.  She even bought me the package so that I could see the ingredients!  How cute is that?  Seriously.  Super cute.

So, I looked at her little face and said that I would try.  She proudly handed me the package and said it was easy, since I also had the ingredients.  Flour, sugar, chocolate, fiber (I kid you not, that was an ingredient), high fructose corn syrup and some long chemically sounding names.  She then gave me a microscopic taste of the cookie, and ate the rest, of course.   The taste from my extremely tiny piece was distinctly underwhelming.  Cloyingly sweet with a bare whisper of chocolate taste.  A hint of chewy.  That was I had to work with.  I asked if she minded if I tried to make the cookie better.  She said I could try, but, in her opinion, that cookie was hard to beat.

Clearly I was making Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies.  But how?  Recipes seemed evenly divided between adding melted chocolate to a slightly modified chocolate chip cookie recipe or adding cocoa powder instead.  Some omitted chocolate chips and substituted white chocolate chips to avoid a monotonous look.  Some used all white sugar, others split the sugar between white and brown.

What did I want from these cookies?  I wanted a very chocolatey cookie.  More importantly, what ingredients did I have on hand?  Recipes that used melted chocolate, used more than I had on hand.  So, I wanted to try a hybrid, part melted chocolate, part cocoa powder.  I also had both white chocolate and dark chocolate chips.  I knew I wanted to use brown sugar and white sugar because of the great results I have with my regular chocolate chip cookies.   And I wanted to rest the cookie dough for at least a day.  It really helps develop the flavor of the cookie.  So with all of these parameters, what did I get?

One naughty, naughty cookie.  This is Noir.  Dark.  Sinful. Thick.  Rich. Chocolate.  No cloying sweetness.  Just flat out unbridled chocolate.  This is a cookie that is begging for whole milk. You will not be disappointed.  Neither was my daughter.  In her mind, these were “way better”.

The chocolates I used were:  Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder, Ghirardelli Unsweetened Chocolate, Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, and E. Guittard White Chocolate chips.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Noir

2 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine and aerate.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugars. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until each is incorporated. Add the melted chocolate and mix until thoroughly incorporated.

Add the dry mixture by thirds to the creamed mixture and mix until combined. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts, if used. Cover dough and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Place a heaping tablespoon of dough on a lined cookie sheet. Bake 9-11 minutes.