Chocolate Crinkles

I just made these chocolate crinkle cookies. They are divine. I'd been seeing these cookies in all my cookbooks and thought, "Hm. Those look good. I should really try those." Finally, I did. I used the recipe from Betty Crocker's Baking For Today (2005). Before I give you the recipe, I should mention that I now do all my baking with unbleached white flour. I read in Essentials of Baking (Williams Sonoma, 2003) that unbleached flour has a more pleasant taste, and I quite agree. I think it has made a huge difference in the flavor of my sugar cookies, especially. Oh, I also use parchment paper to bake with now. It's just simpler.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
approximately 1/2 cup powdered sugar

In large bowl, mix granulated sugar, butter, vanilla and chocolate with spoon. Stir in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheet with shortening or spray with cooking spray. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into powdered sugar; roll around to coat. Shape into balls. On cookie sheet, place balls about 2 inches apart.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack; cool.

Be sure to really drop the dough directly into the powdered sugar. I thought I was being so clever by deciding it would work better to ball it up in my hands first. I was definitely wrong! Plus, if you ball it up after you've rolled it in the powdered sugar, the excess sugar comes off and doesn't get everywhere when moving the cookies. Maybe the dough was so sticky because I only left it in the refrigerator for about two hours. Hey, when you bake a dozen different cookies in half a week, you start to look for shortcuts! :)

(Note: The image was also taken from Baking For Today.)