If you hang around with science fiction fans (of any flavor) you will inevitably hear a certain phrase. It's always offered up with giggles, or a leer, or...
Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies!
Being a geek, and a foodie, when the First Reader made a joke about the dark side having better cookies (in addition to a sense of humor) I decided I had to make a Darkside Cookie. Now, if all I wanted was dark, that's easy. A big ol' dollop of food dye, and voila, black cookies. Of course, your victi, er, recruits to the Rebel Alliance will crap green for a week, but hey, dark cookies?
No. What I wanted was flavor. Big, bold flavor. Sensuous cookies that seduce the tastebuds. Chocolate, the food of the gods. Perfect for the geeks who understudy Prometheus.
I asked for thoughts in a group of equally geeky and foodie friends. Moar Chocolate! the ringing shout echoed. And caffeine. And... And someone pointed out that it should have all the 'evil' foodstuffs. Sugar, fats, glutens. John Ringo gleefully suggested that every ingredient be GMO. Only problem with that is they don't label for GMOs (yet) but I can guarantee the flour is GMO, at least.
Once we had covered that, and the silliness had given me good working ideas, I had to acquire ingredients. I have used instant coffee powder in cooking, but Amanda Fuesting pointed me toward Espresso Powder, which sounded ideal for the Darkside Cookies. I also found dark chocolate chips rather than the bittersweet I normally use.
Armed and ready for operations, I commenced with the base recipe I use for chocolate chip cookies.
I like to gather my ingredients before I begin. Chocolate three ways and espresso powder.
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:23]
The batter before flour. So chocolaty
This is about how big, and widely spaced, I do my cookies. You can put them closer, but they will touch and meld at the edges.
Toffee - chopped to put in the cookies.
Now, this wasn't the first batch I did. But the first batch wasn't quite dark enough, and although the flavor was great, they weren't what I had envisioned. But don't worry... that recipe will appear later today.
In the meantime... the Darkside cookies are very chocolaty, very rich, and utterly decadent. The First Reader complained that they were too chocolaty.
Yes!! I have achieved the chocolate singularity!
Muahaha... come to the darkside cookies.
Cookies and milk, the mad science way.
As you can see, they are even darker inside, and fully of melty goodness.
That's not a moon, it's a cookie!