Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Soft and goey insides? Check.
Flaky and shiny outsides? Check.
It's a brownie, but in a cookie!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• ¼ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder 
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  
• ¾ teaspoon table salt
  
• 10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
  
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (don't use canola oil)
  
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  
• 2 tablespoons milk (2% or whole is fine)
  
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 2 large eggs

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 F
2. Use two Airbake pans with a sheet of parchment paper on each.
3. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl; set aside.
4. In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whisk flour, sugar, and eggs on medium-high speed until very thick and pale, about 4 minutes.
5. While this is mixing, heat 6 ounces chocolate, oil, and butter. You can do this in the microwave on 50% power in 30 second increments, or on the range on an "extra low" setting if your range has it, stirring frequently, and turning off the heat if you need to attend to something else. Heat the chocolate very slowly; don't let it bubble, and when in doubt, turn off the stove and let the residual heat melt the chocolate. I have failed many times trying to heat chocolate on the stove until I we got a new range with the "extra low" setting, so just use a microwave if you have one. Once the chocolate is 3/4 melted, it should be hot enough to melt the rest of it, so remove form heat and go ahead and start whisking in the milk at this point.
6. Remove the bowl with the sugar and eggs from the mixer, and whisk in melted chocolate mixture by hand gently.
7. Fold in dry ingredients with rubber spatula slowly.
8. Fold in remaining 4 ounces chocolate chips.
9. The dough will be very "fluffy" looking due to the whipped eggs, and warm because of the warm chocolate.
10. Using a #30 scoop (about a tablespoon size), scoop 10-12 heaping-tablespoon portions of batter onto each prepared sheet. I recommend using the cookie/ice cream scoops like this which gets the batter out of the scoop easily and quickly.
11. Bake about 15 minutes, until cookies are puffed and covered with large cracks (cookies will look raw between cracks and seem underdone).
12. Let cool on the sheets (not a rack!) for 20-30 mins in order for the cookies to set and be brownie-like. 

A NOTE ON DOUBLING

This recipe can be doubled but doesn't work nearly as well. I tried to double it when making large batches of Christmas cookies to give to friends and family. Chemistry is important here, so you should bake immediately after you mix in the chocolate and dry ingredients while it's still "foamy". This also means you really need to bake the entire batch at once (so fit all cookies on 2 trays). The dough can't sit out on the counter long or go in the refrigerator. It's warm after mixing in the chocolate and cooling changes the texture significantly. When the dough cools, it gets thicker, and the cookies don't come out smooth and shiny but rather more jagged and dull. The insides don't taste any different and are still deliciously soft and chocolatey, but the outside texture is less pleasant. If you're lucky enough to have a double oven and four cookie sheets, double away!