Day 23: Hot Cocoa Cookies

There are a few things you must have before making these Hot Cocoa Cookies.
1. A chilly evening in the forecast.
2. A quiet evening in that same forecast
3. A roaring fire
4. Some Peppermint Mocha Coffee
or and it also doesn't hurt if you have a fine chocolatier sponsoring you.

This is another one of Rachael Ray's Holiday Cookie Recipes, but beware, they are a little costly to make. the recipe calls for 7 bars of semi sweet chocolate. 7 bars!!! I have been putting off making these just for that reason. But this morning at the grocery store, Ghiradelli 4 oz. semi sweet bars were on sale for 2 for $5.00. I bought two, convincing myself I read the recipe wrong and maybe it actually was only calling for 7 oz. No such luck. But then I read the recipe a little more carefully and I noticed that the first 12oz. of chocolate used is chopped and melted with butter. Hmmm....12 oz of chopped chocolate. Have you ever noticed the weight on a bag of chocolate chips? Yep, 12oz. Rachael was trying to tell me something! The chocolate chips (Safeway brand even) worked great, but I did use the good chocolate in the rest of the recipe.
The dough for this cookie looks more like a brownie batter. I thought for sure I would be ending my relationship with Rachael after this and I just could not handle another failure after yesterday's Butterscotch Blondie Blowup. However, after chilling the dough/batter for at least 30 minutes as directed it magical firms into a dough that can be rolled into a ball. From there is was smooth sailing and cookies are absolutley delicious!