The Cookie Our Whole Staff Loves

I figured he had to be exaggerating. But when I offhandedly mentioned the recipe in a meeting the following week, it elicited a collective, adoring gasp. Followed by:  

“You have to make them!” 

“That's my favorite recipe at the company.” 

"Oh, those are the best."

I soon discovered that anyone who has ever tried these cookies raves about them in just this way. 

These Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are the cookie that our whole staff loves.

Needing to understand the hype, I made them last Christmas for friends and family. And. . . I instantly joined the adoring chorus. 

The cookies have a uniquely textured, crispy-crackly, sugary exterior but a fluffy, deeply chocolatey, cake-like interior reminiscent of brownies. The dark chocolate, crinkly fissures break through the snow white dusting of confectioners’ sugar during baking—making these cookies as eye-catching as they are mouthwatering.

Everyone I gave a tin of cookies to begged me for the recipe as if it were a secret. But it's not.

1. We use both unsweetened bar chocolate and cocoa powder. These are the most potent sources of chocolate flavor in your pantry. In addition, the starch in cocoa powder allows us to cut back on flour, while the cocoa butter in the bar chocolate means we can use fewer tablespoons of dairy butter. And that translates to even bigger chocolate punch.
2. We add espresso powder. Mixed into the batter, espresso’s rich base notes enhance the cookies' already deeply chocolatey flavor.  
3. We swap brown sugar for granulated. Brown sugar’s faintly bitter, toffee flavors provide a more complex sweetness that complements the dark chocolate.
4. We roll the dough balls in granulated sugar and then powdered sugar. Coating the cookies with either type of sugar draws out moisture from their surfaces, promoting cracks by drying out their tops before the interiors set. But granulated sugar does so more efficiently because of its coarse, crystalline structure. As the crystals absorb moisture from the dough, some dissolve into a syrup. As the cookies continue to bake, this moisture evaporates, and the sugar begins to recrystallize. When enough new crystals form, they begin drawing out moisture from the dough once again. The upshot: a cookie with a faster-drying surface that is more prone to cracking.
5. We use both baking powder and baking soda. This combination produces cookies with the right amount of lift and spread, which in turn helps to create good fissures on the outside.