Granny-esque Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Chewy Chocolate Cookies (the way my grandmother never made them)

I woke up today wanting to bake (and eat) a chewy chocolate cookie reminiscent of the old-fashioned, made-by-grandma, touch-of-molasses, sugared-exterior cookie of my imagination. See, neither of my grannies nor my mom ever made me chocolate cookies like these, but I know I had them somewhere.

So, with my mom's chewy ginger cookie as a guide, I created my own darkly satisfying Chewy Chocolate Cookies, the ones I will make for the wee ones when I am a granny — or a great auntie, at least.

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

3/4 cup vegetable shortening (don't usually partake of the stuff, but it works well here)

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped to within an inch of its life (I massacred a Ghirardelli 70 percent bittersweet baking bar — seriously, you want bits more than chunks)

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granulated sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.

In small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In large bowl, cream butter, shortening and brown sugar. Add molasses and vanilla. Beat in egg.

Add flour mixture in two batches until fully combined.

Stir in massacred bittersweet chocolate.

Form 1-inch (or so) balls of dough and roll them in granulated sugar. 

Place dough balls on prepared cookie sheets, leaving them room to groove.

Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Remove from oven and leave cookies on sheets for about a minute before transferring cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Have a cookie binge, even if you told yourself you wouldn't.