I made these cookies for my birthday party last summer, when I hadn’t really mastered cooking, but was a great baker (I’m still trying to remember the hybrid oreo sugar cookie recipe I mastered when I was eleven). This isn’t my recipe — I found it on allrecipes.com — but it is my photograph. These cookies are delicious. Very thin and crispy, and not too sweet but very rich. If you’re a serious chocolate person, give these a try.

One quick note: Hardly any single person owns one of those big electronic mixers. That can make baking really difficult, since it’s nearly impossible to cream butter and sugar together with a spoon. My solution: wash your hands really, really well, and dig them right in there. A minute or two of kneading the sugar/butter mixture with your fingers will bind it perfectly. And then don’t tell anyone that’s how you did it!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool for one minute on the cookie sheets before removing to cool completely.