Earlier this year, I asked a lawyer friend for a favour: I needed help navigating the legal system for another friend. We went for a coffee, my lawyer friend and I, and I noted how much he enjoyed the café’s Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie. I filed it away.
He gave me some great information (different from advice I’ve learned in the world of law) and we parted … He had to go back to work; and me, to go home. On the way there, I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up a tin of cocoa powder and a packet of chocolate chips.
You see, my friend would have been embarrassed if I had offered to pay him, and he doesn’t drink alcohol, so a bottle of wine was out.
Cookies were the perfect solution. Cookies often are the perfect solution—when you need to thank someone, apologize (after you’ve done the tricky part, with words), provide comfort in tough times, make friends with a new neighbour—the intended recipient will rarely turn away a batch of home-baked cookies.
So go ahead, drop off a batch for the staff and volunteers at your favourite not-for-profit (call first), or for the guy who fixed the niggling problem in your van, or the friend who loaned you the dress for the party. If the shy, goofy smile my lawyer friend cracked (when I gave him his cookies) is any indication, your offering will be most appreciated.
Pro Tip: I learned that brown sugar is absolutely key if you want your cookies to spread and have that lovely, crispy chewiness. To my instructor and fellow students in my writing class at YukonU, with whom I shared a non-spready batch, thank you for not minding.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Cranberry and Walnut Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter at room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup wild low-bush cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F and place racks in the middle of the oven. Line 4 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add in sugars and beat until thoroughly combined. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Whisk in vanilla.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
- Stir dry mixture into wet mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in chocolate chips, walnuts and cranberries.
- Drop cookie dough from a spoon onto baking sheets, spacing dough two inches apart (cookies will spread). Try to get 15 on each sheet.
- Bake for 12–15 minutes until bottoms are shiny and cookies are firm at the edges, but still soft in the middle. They’ll firm up more as they cool.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool on pan, on a wire rack, for 5 minutes.
- Transfer cookies from the pan to the rack and allow to cool to room temperature before storing in a cookie tin. (I am sure nobody will mind if a few warm cookies disappear from the rack.) Will keep for up to 10 days.
