Double Chocolate Drop Cookies

## Book Reference

Gingerbread Cookie Murder

Do not preheat the oven yet. The cookie dough must chill for at least an hour before baking.

## Ingredients

**Cookies**

* 1/4 cup softened salted butter (1 and ½ sticks, 6 ounces)
* 2 cups brown sugar (pack it down when you measure it)
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/2 cup whipping cream or half and half
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (pack it down in the cup when you measure it and then level it off with a table knife)
* 2 and ½ cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it and then level it off with a table knife)
* 2 cups semi-sweet (regular) chocolate chips

**Chocolate Fudge Frosting**

* 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (a 12-ounce package)
* 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
* 1 pecan half to decorate the top of each cookie\*\*\*

\*\*\*You can also use something with a Christmas theme to decorate your cookie. I've used red and green M&Ms, a sprinkling of crushed candy canes, or any small soft Christmas-themed candy. If you make these for other holidays, let your imagination run wild in the candy aisle!

### Directions

**Cookies**

* Do not preheat the oven yet. The cookie dough must chill for at least an hour before baking.
* In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the softened butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vegetable oil. Beat them together until the mixture is light and fluffy.
* Add the sour cream and the whipping cream. Mix until they’re incorporated.
* Mix in the vanilla, baking soda and salt.
* Add the unsweetened cocoa powder and mix at LOW SPEED until it’s incorporated. (If you try to add the cocoa powder at high speed, it’ll fly out in a cloud all over your kitchen—don’t ask how I know this.)
* Working at LOW SPEED, add the flour in ½ cup increments, mixing after each addition. (This time you could get a cloud of flour if your mixer speed is too high.)
* When all the flour has been incorporated, take the bowl from the mixer and stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
* Cover your mixing bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for an hour. Overnight is fine, too.
* When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350°F, rack in the middle position.
* Cover your cookie sheet with parchment paper. You can spray the parchment paper with Pam or another nonstick baking spray if you like, but you don't really have to. If you don't have parchment paper or baking paper, just grease your cookie sheets or spray them with Pam. You may have to let the cookies cool for 3 minutes or so after they’re baked so that they won’t fall apart when you remove them, but it beats slogging through the snow to the store to buy baking supplies.
* Drop the cookie dough by teaspoonfuls onto the cookies sheets, 12 to a standard-size sheet. (Lisa and I use a 2-teaspoon disher at The Cookie Jar.)
* Bake the cookies at 350°F for 8 to 10 minutes. (Mine took 9 minutes.) They should bake until they’re “set” but not dry. You can test them by touching one cookie on the top. If your finger doesn’t come away with sticky dough on it, your cookies are ready to come out of the oven.
* Remove the cookie sheet to a wire rack and let the cookies cool on the sheet for 2 minutes. Then lift the cookie sheet and pull the parchment with the cookies off onto the wire rack. Leave them on the parchment paper until they’re completely cool.

**Hannah's Note:** *You can eat these cookies just as they are, dust them with powdered sugar to pretty them up, or—if you're craving a chocolate overload—frost them with the Chocolate Fudge Frosting (recipe below) and decorate them with a pecan half on top while the frosting's still soft.*

**Chocolate Fudge Frosting**

* If you use a double boiler for this frosting, it's foolproof. You can also make it in a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat on the stovetop, but you'll have to stir it constantly with a wood spoon or a heat-resistant spatula to keep it from scorching.
* Fill the bottom part of the double boiler with water. Make sure the water doesn't touch the underside of the top when you put the two parts together.
* Put the chocolate chips in the top of the double boiler and set it over the bottom. Place the double boiler on the stovetop at medium heat. Stir occasionally until the chocolate chips are melted.
* Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk and cook approximately 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the frosting is shiny and of spreading consistency.
* Work fast to frost every cookie and plunk on the decoration you've chosen. If your frosting hardens up before you're through frosting the cookies, you can always reheat it over low heat until it's spreadable again.

**Hannah's Note:** *Two Christmases ago, Mother took Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies to her cookie exchange. The ladies loved them, but I got calls from every single of them asking if I'd make sure Delores brought Double Chocolate Drop Cookies topped with Chocolate Fudge Frosting the next year.*

## Conversion Charts

See Baking Conversion Chart for non-USA baking conversions.