Cassia Bark: The Hummingbird Triple Chocolate Cookies

I have been meaning to make these cookies for ages...since the day I laid my eyes on this gorgeous photo in the cookbook. They are black, bitter sweet and chewy. I mean that's every chocaholic's dream isn't it? I'm not a big chcolate eater myself. Reasons being I have an allergy to one of the ingredients in chocolate (i don't know which one) and these are too sinful! So you're probably thinking then why the heck I made these cookies! Well I made them for my friend whom we're going to visit tomorrow. She gifted me this lovely recipe book called The Hummingbird Bakery Book and I absolutely love it. This is the first time I baked these cookies and the responses from my guinea pigs (of course my husband, his friend, our neighbour and my daughter) make me believe that these are quite good and will be making them again.

Ingredients :

Dark Chocolate - 120 gm (about 60% cocoa solids)

Plain Flour - 150 gm

Cocoa - 30 gm sifted

Unsalted Butter - 125 gm (softenend)

Golden Light Sugar - 75 gm

Caster Sugar - 50gm

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

1 Egg

Bicarbonate of Soda - 1 tsp

White/Black Chocolate Chips - 1/2 a bag

Method :

Heat the oven 170C/Gas3. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a double broiler or in a bowl kept over a pot of boiling water. Mix the flour, sifted cocoa and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl.

Whip the softened butter and the two sugars in a bowl attached to a stand mixer or by a handheld electric whisk till light and fluffy.

Crack in the egg and gradually beat in the vanilla extract. Now add the melted chocolate to the butter mixture and give a final whisk. Fold in the dry mix with a wooden spoon or spatula and mix well.

Line a oven proof tray with greaseproof paper and scoop out the cookie dough and place on the tray about 6 cm apart. I used an ice cream scoop to scoop it out. It gives a perfect round shape. No need to flatten the balls.