Are you ready for a cookie that is half cookie and half brownie?
These cookies are rich and fudgey like your homemade brownies and with their delicious soft centers and beautiful tops, these are the cookies that will win the cookie party this holiday season.
The outer layer has a delightful crunch while the center stays gooey.
Chocolate crinkle cookies are rooted in the American imagination. They were popularized as an invention of Betty Crocker, but she wasn’t actually a real person, there were different actresses who played the role of Crocker, and General Mills invented her in the 1920s. Crocker actually became so popular she was named the most popular woman after Eleanor Roosevelt at the time.
But the recipe for the Chocolate Crinkle Cookies came from a woman in St. Paul Minnesota, Helen Fredell. The cookie recipe first appeared in Betty Crocker’s cookbook the Cooky Carnival. Crocker describes how she had them at Fredell’s home and begged for the recipe. And since Crocker is a fictional character, who knows how we really came to have this amazing recipe, but we’re not complaining! And at first these cookies were made with molasses and cloves… a very different recipe from the one we use now.
The Philippines is actually the crinkle cookie capital of the world. They eat them throughout the year and have perfected these sugary cookies. They’ve even had a study done under the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science Technology, “Development and Transfer of the Technology of Iron-Fortified Chocolate Crinkles.”
Christmas Cookies have made up the cultural history of America since the onset of our country. In American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, considered to be the first American cookbook, published in 1796, she gives a recipe for “Another Christmas Cookey,” asking the reader to cook their cookey over an open fire in a cast iron pot.
The word cookie comes from the Dutch word koekje, which is a diminutive of the work koek meaning cake which was the cake eaten on New Years Day. There’s a story that George Washington held open house receptions on New Years while living in New York, originally settled by the Dutch, and served these cakes, and so it became very fashionable.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup of all purpose flour
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 stick of butter
- powdered sugar
Directions:
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy.
- Add in the vanilla and egg and beat together
- In a medium bowl, beat together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder
- Slowly pour the dry ingredients into the large bowl while beating the dough together.
- Add the chocolate chips.
- Chill the dough for 4 hours
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit
- Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
- Grab about a tablespoon and a half of dough and roll them into balls. Roll the dough into some powdered sugar and put on the baking sheet
- Bake for 10 minutes
