Cocoa Fudge Cookies

It's almost Christmas and I have a cookie recipe to post,

I'm sharing it with a holiday story that doesn't go like most,

It's not like the wraith's haunting old Scrooge on Christmas Eve,

But the story of a neighbor turned despicable cookie-thief.

If you like true-crime stories grab a mug of cocoa, toss in some marshmallows, and curl up for a read. (Or scroll down for the recipe. Click here for last year's "Norwegian Butter Cookies recipe.")

Earlier this fall I signed up for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011 asking to be paired with other's requesting healthy cookies. Before the cookies were due I tried to make Honey Crickle cookies "healthy" by replacing the oil with applesauce, and the sugar with honey... I ended up with some strange, chewy cookies. What was I going to do? I had two people requesting healthy cookies. I finally gave up and just went with a tried and true "healthy" recipe that I knew was good: Cocoa Fudge Cookies from Cooking Light (January 2002).

If you follow my Tweets you know I was out early shopping for organic vanilla, baking, and all excited to participate. We got them shipped off on the morning of the deadline and I forgot about the cookies, getting busy with all things December!

As the week rolled on I received my first box of cookies: Pri Aniki's, a soft thumbprint cookie from Meg at the blog Harmonious Belly. They're made with plum jelly from her backyard and sweetened with honey and have a gentle ginger taste. (Thanks Meg!)

The next box was full of Cinnamon-Spiced Butterscotch-Chip Pecan Cookies sent to me by Kiri with the Healthy Foodie Travels blog. These little cookies were like a biscotti snicker doodles. The pecans and butterscotch added richness to the cookie. (Thanks Kiri!)

It was so fun to get the cookies in the mail! After snapping Instagram's of the cookies, I realized my new cookie-swap friends might be on Twitter too and Kiri had just tweeted that she hadn't received her cookies yet. After checking the shipping details--which showed they had been delivered two days earlier... research ensued and it turned out her package had been stolen. I'm all-kinds of irritated that you can't send a package of cookies in the mail without it being kifed. Stupid cookie thief's.

Okay, pause, breathe, and take a comforting sip of cocoa. While the package stealer is still at large there is a bright lining to the story. There's going to be a New Year's sequel with a happy ending! Kiri's agreed that I can send her some cookies to a different address so she'll get some homemade cookies after all! 

So after the Christmas tale of cookie thiefs, chocolate homemade cookies, New Year's cookies, and new friends, I'm presenting you with a good low-fat chocolate cookie recipe. I hope you enjoy them. They're not your traditional holiday cookie, but they'd probably be pretty great drizzled with white chocolate and peppermint starlight mints crushed and sprinkled on. Still, they're pretty tasty, in a devils-food kind of way, all on their own.

(Note: Yes, Virginia this is a low fat recipe! I tripled the batch. That's why the butter is swimming around in well, er, butter.)

Cookbook Bites Recipe Review of Cocoa Fudge Cookies.

Cocoa Fudge Cookies

1 C flour (plus some)

1/4 t baking soda

1/8 t kosher salt

5 T butter

7 T unsweetened natural cocoa

2/3 C white sugar

1/3 C brown sugar (packed)

1/3 C Greek yogurt, low-fat, plain

1 t vanilla (I used organic this time)

Cooking spray

(This is word per word from Cooking Light's recipe) "Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, soda, and salt; set aside. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat; stir in cocoa powder and sugars (mixture will resemble coarse sand). Add yogurt and vanilla, stirring to combine. Add flour mixture, stirring until moist. Drop by level tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes or until almost set. Cool on pans 2 to 3 minutes or until firm. Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks."

(Note: I increased the flour in my cookies a little, like about 1/4 C for the triple batch. To get them to set up a little better. I think you may just want to do a test cookie depending on your altitude and how much you want the cookie to spread.)

Recipe Source: Cocoa Fudge Cookies, Cooking Light, January 2002 (BTW There's a nutrition breakdown at this link. Thanks Cooking Light!)

Suzanne
Cookbook Bites
Subscribe to Cookbook Bites (Google, Twitter, Yahoo!, AIM) 
Get posts right to your inbox (Subscribe right below my pic)