Sometimes, it’s early summer and you are scooping up as many ramps, rhubarb stalks and baby artichokes that your arms can hold, so that you can bring them home to make such seasonally appropriate delicacies as grilled ramp pizza, rhubarb cake and artichoke cannelloni. And sometimes, you just want to bake a batch of seasonally agnostic chocolate cookies.
These are great cookies for when you’ve got limited ingredients in the house and you have that strong but but undeniable urge to bake something. Usually this happens to me when I am stressed and the idea of following mindless instructions feels very comforting, or equally as often when I am heavily procrastinating on something I really don’t want to do, and so finding something I really do not need to be doing becomes paramount.
I find several things incredibly appealing about these cookies. First, they are adorable. They crack in such a perfect way, the chocolate showing through the powdered sugar, and they look so fantastic on a plate. Second, they have an amazing texture. They are not overly rich and are a bit on the cakey side, but with a nice resistance when you bite into one. And last, they come from Maida Heatter’s cookbook, and she is a dessert legend. If you don’t have a weathered and yellowed Maida Heatter cookbook, you’re really missing out- she is the final authority on all things sweet and I trust everything she’s ever published.
But back to the cookies. They contain walnuts – but not too many – for some added texture and interest. They’re not complicated- they’re really easy to make, fun to roll in the powdered sugar, and they just taste good. They’re easy to love. But honestly, sometimes you don’t want a cookie that contains miso or matcha tea powder. Sometimes you just want a chocolate cookie, and that’s when you turn to the aggies.
Ingredients
- 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 oz. (4 tablespoons) butter
- 4 oz (4 squares) unsweetened chocolate
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 extra large or jumbo eggs
- 2 oz. (generous 1/2 cup) walnuts, cut medium fine
- About 1 cup confectioners sugar (may need more)
Instructions
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a heavy 3-quart saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and the chocolate. Stir occasionally until smooth and then remove from the heat. With a heavy wooden spatula stir the granulated sugar into the warm chocolate mixture. Then stir in the eggs one at a time. Add the sifted dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Stir in the nuts.
- It will be a soft dough and it must be refrigerated. It may be left in the saucepan or transferred to a bowl. Either way, cover and refrigerate, preferably for 1 1/2 hours (but the dough may be refrigerated longer or overnight if you wish).
- Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 300 degrees. Cut aluminum foil to fit cookie sheets.
- Press the confectioners sugar through a strainer and spread it out on a large piece of wax paper. Sugar the palms of your hands with some o the confectioners sugar. Roll the dough into 1- to 1 1/4-inch balls, using a heaping teaspoonful of dough for each cookie. Roll the balls around in the confectioners sugar and place them 2 inches apart on the aluminum foil. (If the dough was refrigerated overnight and if the cookies are not baked immediately after being shaped, the confectioners sugar will become wet. If this happens the cookies should be rolled around in the sugar again and then rolled between your hands again- the cookies will be more attractive if the confectioners sugar coats them heavily.)
- Bake the cookies for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops of the cookies are barely semifirm to the touch. Reverse the position of the sheets top to bottom and front to back once during baking to ensure even baking. Do not overbake- these should be slightly soft in the centers. (If you bake only one sheet at a time bake it high in the oven.)
- Slide the foil off the cookie sheets and with a wide metal spatula transfer the cookies to racks to cool.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2018/06/07/chocolate-aggies/
