HOT AND SPICY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

By mm_food4me

While I recommend the combo, if spicy cookies aren’t your thing, try adding some peppermint oil to the dough, or replacing some of the sugar with raspberry jam. While experimentation in baking is often frowned upon, cookies are pretty forgiving and a great opportunity to try your hand at something a little different.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 sticks of butter at room temperature
• 3/4 C packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 C granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 C + 2 Tbs all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 1/2 C bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks

Preparation

Step 1

Move the oven rack to the middle position and preheat to 325 degrees.

Cream the butter and 2 kinds of sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix till combined after each addition. Add the vanilla, cinnamon and cayenne pepper, mixing until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add it to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir in by hand.

Scoop roughly 1/4 cup of batter for each cookie onto a baking sheet (it’s okay if the balls are jagged) leaving enough room for them to spread. Bake 1 sheet at a time for about 12-15 minutes each or until the edges are set, but the middle is still soft. You may need to experiment with your oven to figure out the perfect cooking time. As these cookies bake, they go from chewy to cakey to crisp, so you can change their characteristic by the amount of time you bake them for.

To get the chewy center, allow them to cool on the pan (not on a rack).