Snowy-topped Brownie Drops

The majority vote from last weekend's Cookie Ideas post was for these snowy-topped brownie drops from Dorie's Cookies. It's a weird name for a cookie, I have to admit, although the name worked out pretty well within the context of a work event this week. Basically, Dorie's snowy-topped brownie drops are a brownie cookie. She took her Classic Brownie recipe, added a bit more flour, and rolled small rounds of the dough in confectioner's sugar, ultimately yielding a crackly crusted cookie with an ultra-rich chocolatey interior. Think - all the best parts of a super fudgy brownie, with extra chunks of dark chocolate folded in, and baked just long enough to barely set the outside. These snowy-topped brownie drops are extremely decadent, and you'll think that you can only eat just one, but after eating another one or two, you'll discover you were wrong. As a bonus, they pair fantastically with vanilla gelato or as the cookie base for an ice cream sandwich.

Happily, Dorie's brownie cookies are incredibly easy to make. You don't need to plan ahead and bring butter or eggs to room temperature, although you do need to wait at least 3 hours for the dough to rest before baking the cookies. I opted to use bittersweet chocolate rather than semisweet and I thought the cookies were plenty sweet ... but your chocolate preferences may be different than mine.

To start, just melt together the ¾ of the total chocolate and the butter, using either a double boiler or a microwave. I used the microwave - one less dish to clean, just take care to heat in 30 second bursts so you don't overdo it. And if you have leftover tempered dark chocolate from making truffles, it's totally fine to use that as some of the chocolate...

As soon as the chocolate and butter have melted together, whisk in the sugar, then whisk in the two cold eggs, one at a time. It's important to whisk rather energetically (or on medium speed) for a minute after each egg addition. You want the batter to transform into a really smooth, shiny, voluptuous mixture by the end. Quickly whisk in the vanilla and salt, then carefully fold in the flour, followed by the last ¼ of the total chocolate. At this point, you're done! for the next 3 hours. Either wrap the mixing bowl with plastic wrap, transfer the dough to an airtight storage container, or scoop out small balls of the cookie dough into a plastic bag. Note that this dough is incredibly sticky (there's very little flour in it), so working with it is a little frustrating. It will stick to your cookie scoop and jam up the mechanism (I speak from experience). Keeping that in mind, unless you think you might be short on time before you bake this cookies, it's probably easier to keep the dough together as you chill it and only scoop it out when you're ready to bake.

Baking these snowy-topped brownie drops follows the pretty standard procedure for crinkle-type cookies. Preheat the oven to 350°F, line your baking sheets with parchment/silicone liners, scoop out one tablespoon of dough to form a ball, roll each dough ball in powdered sugar to coat, and repeat to fill the baking sheets. Leave about 2 inches between cookies to account for spreading, although they don't really spread much. Dorie recommends baking only one sheet at a time. That's great for her, and if you have the luxury to heat your place up and take twice as long to bake a batch of cookies, definitely follow her recommendations. But you don't have to... I baked two sheets at a time, and the cookies were fine - I just gave them an extra 40 seconds to account for the extra dough being baked simultaneously.  Whichever way you choose, you're looking for cookies that have spread and crackled slightly, the sides should feel just set, and the centers should still look quite soft.

Take the cookies out, let them cool on the baking sheet on a rack for 2 minutes, then move them directly to the cooling rack to finish cooling. Serve these snowy-topped brownie drops while they are still warm or at room temperature. They will keep up to 3 days stored in an airtight container at room temperature, and they keep their delicious luscious softness pretty well for at least the first 36 hours. None of the cookies lasted longer than that in my house.

Wondering where all the pictures are? I'm having trouble getting my camera to sync with my PC and I left my memory card at my parent's, so we're going to be text heavy here for a little while.