Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
5 oz semi-sweet Hershey Baking Melts OR dark chocolate disks
1/3 cup candy cane bits
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until a very thick dough forms. Fold in the melts and candy cane bits. Form cookies by dropping 1 teaspoon of dough on the sheet two inches apart. Flatten slightly then bake until light brown, about 12 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.
Yield: about 2 dozen
Tip: I leave the candy canes in their plastic wrapper and whack them with a rolling pin to create the bits. Then I “unwrap” them into a bowl or measuring cup.
My thoughts:
My mom brought me back these Hershey Baking Melts from Chocolate World at Hershey Park and then next thing you know, I found them at the regular supermarket! If you can’t find them, I think some dark chocolate disks could be a good substitute. The best part of these cookies is the large chunks of chocolate so while chips would work, something with some heft is better. I really enjoyed the flavor, texture and melty-ness of the “melts” but I will say their size and flattish shape made them tricky to scoop with my cookie scoop and I ended up with rather large cookies. Which is fine with me, but the total yield wasn’t as many as I could of eked out using regular chocolate chips. But! You do get a big shot of gooey chocolate in every bite so I think it is worth the minor hassle. I’ve been candy cane crazy this year so I stirred some into the dough which added a jolt of peppermint that was delicious and refreshing but not overwhelmingly “PEPPERMINT”, just a lovely holiday note in an otherwise pretty straightforward cookie. I don’t want to give the impression that straightforward is a bad thing. It isn’t at all. These are very, very good cookies. We ate nearly all of them in about three days.
