I’ve been a chewy cookie devotee for pretty much my whole life, but I might be coming around to the other side. I mean, I’m not going to swear off soft cookies forever or anything, but let’s just say I get where the crunchy cookie people are coming from.
Think about it. We don’t eschew crunchy vanilla wafers or snappy shortbread. Lord knows we love Oreos. But for some reason we all rush to vilify pretty much any other cookie with that texture. And why? What’s so wrong with a light, crispy cookie with a good crunch all the way through?
Nothing. That’s what. Especially when they’re double chocolate and can be yours in less than an hour’s time.
As with other crispy, crunchy cookies I’ve made, these Double Chocolate Cookies are top notch. They’re not a second best, or an “if you don’t have eggs and brown sugar” cookie. They’re their own thing—a double chocolate cookie for the crunchy cookie people. They’re light, crackly-topped, and chocolaty as all get out. If that isn’t enough, you likely have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now.
Who knows, with a little elbow grease and working oven, you could become a crunchy cookie person any day now. Welcome to the club.
Crispy, Crunchy Double Chocolate Cookies
makes about 2 dozen cookies
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2 tablespoons light corn syrup (or golden syrup or mild honey)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips + more for topping
Arrange oven racks in central positions. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Cut softened butter into 8 pieces and add them to the mixing bowl. Starting at low speed and increasing as ingredients become incorporated, use an electric mixer to mix the butter into the flour/sugar mixture until powdery and wet-sandy. You may need to stop a time or two to break up larger pieces of butter.
Add corn syrup and vanilla and mix to combine. Dough will look crumbly, but should hold together well when pinched.
Add the chocolate chips to the dough and mix/knead them in with a clean hand (or a silicone spatula or wooden spoon) until evenly distributed and the dough is a cohesive unit.
Scoop the dough by the tablespoon, roll into balls and place them 2-3 inches apart on prepared pans (I fit 12 on each half-sheet pan). Bake for 9 minutes, then rotate the pans top-to-bottom and front-to-back. Bake another 8-9 minutes, until a bit puffy and cracked on top.
Let cookies cool for 7 minutes on the pans. Remove to a rack to cool completely. Serve.
Leftover cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
Last week, I needed a win. I needed a win badly.
I was reeling from a personal tragedy, having a difficult time getting myself out of bed in the morning, and couldn’t get any recipes to work properly. I suffer from depression and anxiety, so some of this is just part of my normal life, but there’s something about having recipes—something with which I am supposed to have some modicum of talent and control—repeatedly fail that sends me into a tailspin.
I woke up Friday morning determined to get one recipe to work. Just one. Something I thought would be easy and only take two or three tries: a chocolate variation on my single-serving 
Over the course of two hours, I ran the gamut of cookie failure. Too flat, too puffy, too dry, too chemical-tasting—you get the idea. Here are four of them:
But then I looked at my tried & true 
Also, crucial to cookie success? Underbaking. If you bake this cookie until it’s fully done, you’ll end up with a chocolate M&Ms frisbee. This is because cocoa powder tends to dry things out and also because I use a teaspoon of water here in place of the usual egg (a little trick I learned from the regular chocolate chip version). Underbaking will yield crisp-chewy edges, a crackly top, and a soft, fudgy center. Yesssss.
I had a bunch of M&Ms leftover from making 
e2 bakes brooklyn 