Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've got a large collection of chocolate chips. I always have at least a bag or two on hand, but the recent collection started with prepping for my sister's baby shower, with some of the favors being jars of cookie mix.Thirty-six jars later, and oops! I may have bought a little more than I needed. Not a bad problem to have, right? "There's too much chocolate in the house!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "I have to bake! It's a tragedy!"

I also tend to be rather stockpiled on flour, sugar, and the other baking essentials. The great thing about it is that when I get the urge to bake, I've likely got what I've need already on hand.

A couple of years ago, I decided to start throwing cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg into a chocolate chip cookies recipe. It was the last recipe I got to make for my grandmother, who the entire family knows was the master of chocolate chip cookies. They were so good; she'd freeze tubs of them for us and I still think they were best frozen. She gave me the thumbs up for my version, and I've been adding a little bit extra to many desserts ever since.

I used a mix of white and dark chocolate chips because as I mentioned, I've got the whole "collect all 4" thing going on with my chocolate chip collection and so I've got all the options (literally, I've got mint chips, peanut butter, butterscotch, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and semi-sweet).

I wish I looked this good so close.

The lovely thing about small cookies is that there are so many to go around. I got to share a good bit of these out to a few people, though not quite the wide variety I'd normally disperse to given that we've been in the midst of a quarantine. Of course, that also meant at one point I caught myself chowing down after wandering in my kitchen several times - six cookies later and I had to hide the bin in my pantry. My favorite part about these was the slightly bitter dark chocolate contrasted with the very sweet white chocolate along with this cocoa, slightly spiced cookie. Overall, the whole thing just meshed well. Small, chocolate pieces of goodness make the world go round.

Cocoa Chocolate Chip Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

3/4 cup white chocolate chips

3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Add butter and sugars to a large mixing bowl. Beat until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla, and then add eggs one at a time, mixing until combined. Gradually stir in flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and mix for 1-2 minutes, until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon tablespoon sized cookies onto parchment-lined pans and bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.