Chipotle Chocolate Cookies

Unassuming little nuggets of smoky chocolaty goodness.

My goal as a baker is to provide standalone classics (just wait until I get around to making my Grama’s cheesecake recipe…so classic that both she and my mom know it from memory) and crazy twists on your average baked good. Will I attempt croissants at some point? Mais oui! Will I also be making eggnog and rum cupcakes around the holidays? Uh, yeah, because eating your cocktails is the way of the future. There are so many styles of baking and recipes and ideas out there that not everyone can (or wants to!) do everything and that’s part of what makes being a baker so great. Now, why did I start this post off with a strangely rant-esque paragraph about my kitchen credo?

CHIPOTLE. CHOCOLATE. COOKIES.

Oh yes. Ohhhhhhh yes my friends. These are AMAZING cookies, and I’m not just saying that because I made them. Why let spicy dark chocolate bars have all the fun? The heat of a chipotle pepper is more smoky than “punch in the mouth where’s the milk”, and the amount of cayenne is small enough that it provides more of a kick than just screaming agony. All of this combined with cinnamon, and chocolate in various forms, makes for one helluva good time in cookie form. They’re not so spicy that folks that don’t like heat in their food will hate them, but juuuust different enough to make it the star of any potluck or party. Or any Sunday night on your couch watching Black Sails…whatever, I don’t judge.

Chipotle Chocolate Cookies

Servings: 2 dozen
Time: 30 minutes of prep + chilling
Difficulty: easy
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INGREDIENTS:

2/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp minced chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
1/2 tsp adobo sauce
1 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking cocoa, sifted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
4.65 oz of chocolate (about 3 candy bars’ worth) – here I used a combination of milk chocolate chips and semisweet chips, but chopped up candy bars would also work well for this recipe

Let’s party.

In a large bowl, cream together butter, white, and brown sugars until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Beat in egg, adobo sauce, vanilla, and chipotle pepper.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk flour, sifted cocoa, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and cayenne; add in thirds to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in chocolate and chill for 45 minutes to an hour, or until easy to handle.
Preheat oven to 350°. Roll into 1-1/2-in. balls (though I highly, HIGHLY recommend using a cookie scoop similar to this one. I got mine at Publix, but a scoop that size makes pretty much all cookie making so much easier); place roughly 4 in. apart on ungreased (non-stick or SILPAT-ed) baking sheets.

Mmm…delicious symmetry. See how nice it is to use a scoop?
Bake 10-12 minutes or until set. Cool 4 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

HEART. EYE. EMOJI.

And there you have it! This dough freezes well, so you could even portion out the cookies using your nifty scoop and save the dough for up to 3 months, but be sure to seal it well – the last thing you want is that forgotten salmon in the back of your freezer to make these cookies a little *too* weird.

Happy Baking!