I’m continuing my adventures in baking with a rich, dark chocolate cookie. I’ve been playing around with this recipe for a few weeks and made a couple tweeks just for the holidays. The cookie is a great basic double chocolate recipe. It has the firmness on the outside with the rich chewiness on the inside everyone loves. For the holidays, I’m dipping these in a peppermint ganache and then sprinkling them with crushed peppermint. These are delicate so store carefully so the ganache doesn’t sick to the other cookies.

I made this recipe at the Rosedale Mall during the Williams Sonoma and Twin Cities Live Holiday Extravaganza and they were a hit!

Ingredients
1 Stick of Butter
½ Cup Crisco (Butter flavor)
½ Cup White Sugar
½ Cup Brown Sugar
¾ Cup Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate
2 tsp Vanilla Paste or Extract
2 Eggs (at room temperature)
2 Cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Salt
11.5 ounce bag Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, divided
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 tsp Peppermint Extract
5 Candy Canes (crushed)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375.

With a mixer, cream butter, Crisco and white and brown sugars. Once creamed, add ground chocolate and vanilla paste. Add one egg at a time and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt and gradually add this to cookie mixture. Then stir in half the bag of chocolate chips.

Using a medium cookie scoop, place 12 scoops on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool.

In a saucepan, bring the heavy whipping cream to a boil. In a bowl, pour whipping cream over remaining chocolate chips to create a ganache. Whisk briskly until completely incorporated (dark brown color will emerge) then add peppermint extract. Dip half of cookie into ganache. Sprinkle crushed candy cane on top of ganache. Allow cookies to set before serving.

Makes 3 Dozen