Giant Chocolate Toffee Cookies

I worked in the kitchen at our church girls camp for several summers. Along with other general kitchen work, I was the cookie baker. It was there I became friends with Heather Judd. She shared this wonderful recipe with me. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to share it with you. Like most cookies that have a lot of real chocolate and a little flour, they are very rich, fudgey and cook up with a shiny, cracked surface. Though this recipe called for them to be “Giant,” I made them scooped with my usual 2-tablespoon scooper and they turned out great for sharing in the emergency department.

Yield:

About 18 large cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 pound semisweet chocolate

¼ cup butter

1 ¾ cups brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

8 ounces Heath toffee chips*

1 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped (optional)

Instructions:

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Set aside.

Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth.  Set aside.  Cool to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat brown sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes.

Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla.

Stir in flour mixture.

Stir in toffee (and nuts.)

Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Drop batter by ¼ cupfuls, (or large cookie scoop) onto sheets, spacing 2 ½ inches apart.  Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 12-14 minutes.  Cool on sheets.

Notes:

When recipes call for the dough to be chilled, I usually skip that step. I have found that they usually do just fine without chilling if you are using a cookie scooper, as I always do. This recipe is an exception. Without chilling, the dough is runny, more like batter. It really needs to be chilled.

* Original recipe called for 5, 1.4 ounce Heath bars, chopped.