You will need a big bowl to mix it in. And an electric beater. And these things:
Start with the butter. Put it in the bowl and beat it on medium until it is white (about 20 sec). Then add the sugar. Keep beating it on medium for about 5 minutes (10 if you have a less powerful beater/hand beater). If you have a stand mixer, feel free to use that instead. This is an important step, because it will make the cookies that much lighter and fluffier. This is what it should look like:
Nice and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat each on medium until incorporated. Add the vanilla and give it a final beat.
Next come the dry ingredients:
To save myself a dirty dish, I just dump it all into the wet.
I mix it on slow just until it is all incorporated (you don't want to over-beat at this point, and any faster than the first setting will send clouds of cocoa powder and flour into the air. I learned that the hard way).
Yeah that looks gross. It's not, I promise. It just needs more chocolate. I normally use chocolate chips, but I didn't have any. I did have baker's chocolate though.
Be careful to read the label. They sell unsweetened chocolate squares. And I was victim to a cruel cruel prank once when I was PMSing and craving chocolate and someone, not going to name names, thought it would be funny to give me unsweetened chocolate. I didn't even know that was a thing! So gross! Especially when you're not expecting it....
So I just chopped up 4 squares, which came up to about a cup. You can add as much or as little chocolate chips as you like. If you're one of those weird people who like nuts in their cookies, you can add those too.
It was warm enough in my kitchen for the squares to chop easily without flying everywhere. I mixed that in with the dough and then set up my baking sheet with parchment paper and preheated my oven to 350.
I rolled the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter and placed them 1.5 inches apart.
The I put them in the over for 11 minutes. This is the most crucial step of the recipe: take them out at 11 minutes! Yes, they look super undercooked. No, DO NOT put them back in the oven. Just put them on top of the oven and put the next batch in. They will continue cooking outside the oven. By the time the next batch is done, the first batch should be firm enough to transfer to a drying rack or plate. You will have soft chewy gooey melt-in-your-mouth cookies. The best part is they stay soft for a couple days in an air-tight container (if they last that long). If you didn't follow my advice and left them in the oven, you will have rocks.
This recipe made 35 cookies (though I did use 1 cup of chocolate chips rather than 2).
Recipe:
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs 1tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cocoa
2 cups chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (5-10 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time and mix to incorporate. Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.
3. Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt to the bowl. Mix together on low until the dough appears completely combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir them into the dough.
4. Roll into 1 inch balls, place about 1.5 inches apart on the sheet.
5. Bake for 11 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). The cookies will appear to be just barely firm with a sheen to their surfaces. Do not over-bake. Allow to cool on the sheet for about 11 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in airtight containers.