World Peace Cookies

It's all Dorie Greenspan's fault.  You see, not only is Dorie Greenspan a food columnist for the Washington Post, has published 12 cookbooks and won numerous James Beard awards, but she authored what has become my go-to source for baking bread - Baking with Julia.  My copy of Baking with Julia is a mess, its pages smeared with dried egg wash and smudges of butter, and it now automatically opens to the challah recipe. I'm officially a Dorie Greenspan fan. She's getting ready to release her newest book "Dorie's Cookies" and she's been posting recipes on her blog. That's how I found the recipe for World Peace Cookies.

We're living in turbulent times and I have found myself feeling worried and apprehensive about the future. The world could use a little peace, so why not put some good karma out there with a batch of cookies?  As I lined up my ingredients, I started to feel a sense of peace come over me.

Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies

1 1/4 cups AP flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 stick + 3 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt (Dorie suggests fluer de sel)
1 tsp vanilla extract (use the good stuff, please)
5 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into pieces (I used Giardelli 60% chips)

Now, Dorie has a lot of little tips that helped tremendously when I put this dough together. This is a rolled cookie dough that gets refrigerated and sliced for baking. Its quite crumbly, but can easily be squeezed back together to form the cookies. If your dough falls apart at any time, don't worry about it. Just press the crumbled bits back together and your cookies will come out just fine.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together and set it aside. Working with the paddle attachment on your mixer or with your hand mixer, cream the butter and two sugars together on medium speed until they are fluffy, soft and well blended. You will probably need to scrape down the bowl once during mixing, just to make sure everything gets well incorporated. Beat in the salt and vanilla. Then stop the mixer, add all the dry ingredients at once and turn the mixer back on low speed so the flour doesn't fly all over the kitchen. It won't take long for this dough to come together. When you can't see any more flour and the dough has formed moist chunks, its done. The dough may or may not form a ball, but don't wait for that to happen. Once it has formed the chunks or curds, its mixed enough. Put in your chocolate pieces and mix for about 15 seconds just to incorporate them.

Now, turn the dough out on your work surface and using your hands, bring it together into a mass. It will feel a little crumbly, but it should not feel dry. You should be able to bring it together easily without it falling apart. I enjoyed working with this dough because its texture resembles playdough and it kind of took me back to my childhood. I shaped mine into a loaf to start, then cut the loaf in half. I took one of the loaves of dough and started shaping it into a log, using my bench scraper to released it as it does stick to the work surface. Dorie is very specific on the size of the log - 11/2 inches in diameter. I have no idea how big mine were, but I would say they were about the size of a medium cucumber. I made two even logs with flat ends, wrapped them in waxed paper and put them in the fridge for at least 3 hours. They can also go in the freezer for a couple of hours. Either way, they need to be very chilled before they get baked. If you have frozen your dough, take it out of the freezer and let it sit out for about half an hour before you slice.

I took my dough out of the fridge, placed an oven rack in the very center of my oven and preheated it to 325 degrees. With a sharp knife, I cut half-inch slices out of the dough. The chocolate chunks make this task a little tricky. Use a sawing motion with your knife to cut through the chocolate chunks. And if the rounds of dough fall apart, just press them back together. I placed the dough rounds on a cookie sheet covered with a silicon baking sheet. I highly recommend you purchase one or more of these tools. It will make your life as a cookie baker so much easier! I only cut enough slices to fill one cookie sheet, then re-wrapped the dough and put it back in the fridge.

The cookies bake for 12 minutes - no more and no less. They will not look set when you take them out of the oven, but that's how they are supposed to look.  DO NOT remove the cookies right away. Let them cool off on the cookie sheet until they are just barely warm, at which point you will not be able to resist popping one in your mouth. They are amazing warm, but the texture changes as they cool and they are just as delightful cold. The texture is mostly crunchy with the slightest bit of chew in the center. The chocolate pieces are soft and melty when the cookies are warm, but they firm up as the cookies sit.

The dough can be stored for several months in the freezer, which means you can make a double batch and always have cookie dough ready to bake at a moment's notice. This is one of the most chocolaty cookies I've ever eaten. I ate four of them without a pause and suddenly felt a wave of peaceful vibes wash over me. Next time, I think I'll add a touch of Vietnamese cinnamon or maybe a little ancho chili powder for that mysterious Mexican chocolate flavor....and for a touch of international flare. Can we actually achieve world peace with a batch of cookies?  If Dorie Greenspan thinks so, I'm inclined to agree.