Birthday Songs, Cookies and.......Nudists?

My husband went to a nudist colony on his birthday! Gee, how many times do you have an opportunity to make a comment like that? Okay, let me clarify, he was called to give an estimate for tree work on his birthday and it happened to be at a nudist colony. (Of course, he wasn't entirely in the know about what type of establishment it was beforehand). Thankfully(?), it was a retirement community for people of a certain age which made me feel loads better knowing there were no throngs of young, lithe beauties milling about in the buff.

Who knew there was such a place around here anyway? I mean we live in a relatively small university town. In addition to many other fine establishments we have Super Walmart, both Office Max & Depot, various fast food restaurants, the UPS Store and Lowe's but a nudist colony? (Sorry, I just can't help repeating that phrase). Anyway, to be more accurate, it's not in our town but located about a half hour to the north of us.

So, I get a phone call from Evan asking me to guess who sang "Happy Birthday" to him that day. Turns out, besides the usual serenading suspects (thanks Mom!), a few of the colony members did as well. I guess he will never forget his 39th birthday as it's indelibly etched into his psyche.

To help alleviate the shock and stress to his retinas system I made an Indian themed dinner and what have been christened "Double Dark Cookies". They are a variation of "Chewy Chocolate White Chunk Cookies" from Maria at "Two Peas and Their Pod". Evan is all about the dark chocolate and pronounced this cookie as "awesome" and his new favorite. I made them using extra dark cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate chunks and pecans but you can lighten it up by using normal cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark) and semi-sweet, milk or white chocolate as the original recipe calls for if you aren't a lover of dark chocolate.

Hope you give the recipe a go and (just a bit of advice) stay away from those nudist colonies will ya?!?

=)

Double Dark Cookies
(Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod)

Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2/3 cup Dutch-process Cocoa Powder (I used Hershey’s Special Dark)
1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted Butter, cubed and at room temperature
1/2 cup white Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons Vanilla
1/3 cup Milk
1 cup chopped Bittersweet Chocolate (or semi-sweet, milk, white or peanut butter)
1/2 cup chopped Pecans

*Substituting with natural, unprocessed cocoa is not recommended. The “Oreo-like” flavor comes from the richer, dutch-processed cocoa.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and line baking sheets with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa - set aside. Beat the butter until light, add sugars, creaming well. Add Vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with 1/2 of the milk after each batch. If dough too dry, add tiny amounts of water until desired consistency; mixing well. Stir in chocolate and nuts. Chill dough for 15 minutes.

Scoop dough onto the lined baking sheet (or take one tablespoon of dough, and roll into a ball). Slightly press down the dough ball and bake for 13-15 minutes for a normal size cookie. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container.

***Want hot, fresh baked cookies with no fuss anytime? Form dough into cookies and place on baking sheets in the freezer. After they are completely frozen, store in ziplock bags or in an airtight container. Separate each level with saran wrap if desired when using a hard container. Then, whenever you want to have a fresh baked cookie, preheat your oven, place the frozen cookies on a baking sheet and bake for about 17 minutes for a normal size Double Dark cookie (you’ll need to add approx. 3-4 minutes onto your normal baking time for most frozen cookies depending on your oven and the size of the cookie. Just keep checking them every few minutes after the initial time).

I do on a regular basis for my husband since he loves freshly baked cookies and I've discovered that it works well with various types of cookie recipes. We found forming the cookie dough first before freezing worked better for us than rolling the dough into a log, freezing and then trying to slice it but you can do that instead if you prefer to slice and bake.