You Made Those Cookies How?

About a month ago I decided to follow through with every good intention or thought I had during the week. I always have ideas to do things for people, but so often my good intentions fall by the wayside or I forget as the days go by. That week, I was determined to do every single thing that popped in to my head. One thought I had was to take a treat to a woman who had really impressed me recently and attach a note of gratitude to it. Since I also needed to bake cookies for a church activity that week, the timing was perfect.

Enter Martha...Stewart, that is. I started hunting through cookbooks for something fun and yummy. I love trying new things, especially with sweets. When I couldn't find anything that intrigued me, I turned to Martha. I have both her cookie and cupcake books. I wish I could say they are well used. I cannot. In fact, until last month, they were both UNused.

As I looked through Martha's Cookies, I found something different and fun...CHOCOLATE WAFFLE COOKIES!

I should say that I've had waffle cookies once before. They were sadly disappointing. I did have a moment of worry that these would be equally as blah as those were, but I decided to risk it anyway. The cookies appeared be a quick bake so I figured if they were disgusting, I'd just scrap them and make something else. Plus, I reasoned that if the recipes is in a Martha book, how bad could they be. Time consuming and complex, probably. Yucky tasting, not likely.

I am so happy I didn't bypass these cookies because of that bad experience in the past. I loved these! They were a nice change from a basic round cookie or cookie bar. The fact that I was able to make them super fast was a bonus.

I ended up making 2 changes to the recipe...one on accident and one on purpose. (I am the queen of screwing up a recipe and not realizing it until it's too late to fix.) More on that later! For now, here's the recipe:

Chocolate Waffle Cookies (slightly adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies)
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 c butter
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c sugar
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c + 2 T cocoa powder
1 1/2 c flour
powdered sugar for dusting
Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over med-high heat, stirring constantly. Let cool slightly. Put eggs, vanilla and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium speed until pale, 4-5 min. Mix in chocolate mixture (I only let mine cool the 4-5 min), salt, cinnamon, cocoa powder and flour. Heat a waffle iron until hot; lightly coat with cooking spray. Spoon about 1 T of batter onto the center of each waffle iron square. Close cover; cook 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, bottom sides up. Let cool completely. Repeat with remaining batter, coating grids after each batch. Dust with powdered sugar. Makes about 4 dozen. (I got about 4 1/2.)

So, what were my changes?

The unintentional change/mistake was to put 1/2 c PLUS the 2 T of cocoa in the cookie batter. I missed the word "divided" when reading the original recipe. I didn't realize the 1/2 c was for the batter and the 2 T was for a glaze to dip the baked cookies in. However, I won't leave out the extra cocoa next time. If you prefer, use the original 1/2 c, but I highly recommend the extra tablespoons.

What was my intentional change? Eliminating the glaze I just mentioned. The recipe says to make the glaze and then dip the raised part of the cookie in it. I actually made the glaze. I even dipped a few cookies in it. But, a few was all it took to realize I didn't like it at all. It was too bitter and, in my opinion, added nothing to the cookie. I liked them with just the dusting of powdered sugar on top.

I tried varying the cook time just a bit. I wanted to make sure my waffle iron wasn't a little hotter or cooler than Martha's. I guess it wasn't because the 90 seconds she recommends was right on. I'd recommend you stick with it.

Just one tip for removing the cookies from the iron: A FORK. I tried a variety of ways to get them off the iron like poking them with a knife or lifting up the corners. The cookies are still quite soft when you open up the iron, so just about everything I tried tore the cookies up or broke off the edges. (My mistakes made for good testers though!) I finally found that using a fork and inserting it in to the side of the cookie--level with the raised parts of the iron--worked perfectly. I could put the fork in far enough to lift the cookies off and flip them over to put on the cooking rack.

I'm not sure if the lady I took a plate of cookies to liked them (I can only hope), but they were a big hit at my church event that night. Everyone kept saying, "Cookies from a waffle iron? I've never seen that before."

While my cookies were a success, I'm afraid I won't be making them again anytime soon. Sadly, about 2 weeks later, my waffle iron did a swan dive off the kitchen counter and fell to its death. I wanted to try and keep using it. Mr. C was opposed citing possible electrocution from the now exposed cords and plates. Oh well. Maybe now I can talk him in to getting me one of those cool flippy irons like you see in hotels!