Once upon a time I lived in Northern Ireland for a year.  This was an amazing, fun, and educational experience.  Aside from meeting wonderful people (some of whom I still count as close friends), working hard for a great cause, and visiting new places, I also got to try new foods.  Granted, Irish/British food isn’t drastically different from American food, but there are some differences.

For example, peanut butter is not really a thing in Northern Ireland.  Sure, it’s in most grocery stores, but it’s nothing like the JIF I grew up with and folks are generally more into Nutella.  If you eat meat (which I did when I lived there), Guinness stew is an amazing version of beef stew.  French fries are “chips” and are liable to come with any dish including Chinese or curry dishes.  Scones are an amazing treat to go with tea, which is drank multiple times a day (read more about my obsession with scones here, here, and here).   And the bread! Irish soda bread is delicious, especially with a thick pat of butter slathered on it.  Ummmm….

I have a serious complaint though.  One thing that was severely lacking in Northern Ireland was proper chocolate chip cookies.  Their version of cookies were dry “biscuits” that most closely taste and resemble graham crackers.  They’re ok, and decent for dunking in tea, but by no means fill the void of chocolate chip cookies.  Being the charmer I was, I sweet talked the kitchen staff into letting me use the kitchen after hours and dug up a chocolate chip cookie recipe online.  I couldn’t tell you where I found it, but I copied it onto a hand-cut recipe card and hung on to it all these years, because it was that good.

These cookies were so good that friends would break their diets for these cookies.  A friend was in the middle of a major clean-eating streak to improve health and well-being.  I didn’t want to NOT tell him I had made these cookies to share, so I gently informed him I made them and let him decide.  He chose cookies.  He chose well.

I just found this recipe back as I was sorting through my massive collection of printed recipes, torn magazine pages, and hand copied recipes.  I already had a chocolate craving, so that was all the encouragement I needed to whip these up.  (But I told the husband they were to celebrate his award at work, shhhhh…don’t tell!)

The husband calls them brownie cookies because they are that chocolatey and soft.  To keep them that way, don’t be afraid to take them out of the oven when they are still soft and not completely baked.  That’s why they stay on the pan for a few minutes to finish cookies and become firm enough to remove without falling apart.

And for the record, these go just fine with tea or coffee.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 4 dozen

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees Celsius).

2. Beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.  Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until well blended.  Mix in chocolate chips.

3. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Cool slightly before transferring them to wire racks.

 

 

Gnocchi the cat thinks he’s helping me write my blog post.  Chocolate chip cookies and tea are ACTUALLY helping me write this blog post.  But Gnocchi is a little cuter.