Chocolate Chipotle Cookies

I saw this recipe on tastespotting a few weeks back and new I wanted to try it, however, when I followed the link to the Oatmeal Cookie Blog and saw the recipe I knew I would have to wait for a while because I didn't have cinnamon chips. An order of cinnamon chips (and a few other things) from the King Arthur Flour website solved that problem and I set about making these cookies as soon as the cinnamon chips were out of the shipping box.

I think it's pretty well documented on this site that despite all the baking I do I'm actually fairly lazy about the whole thing. With that in mind I ended up skipping a few things in the recipe as it was written... I'm sure that the original was very good, and probably better than mine, but it was just so much work for cookies. I went through with grinding the oatmeal in the food processor, but I ended up skipping the whole grated chocolate thing. He wanted grated unsweetened chocolate and grated milk chocolate added to the dough -- but grating chocolate? talk about a mess... and time consuming... and I never get away with something like that without taking off skin from the grater. So I skipped that part and just added extra bittersweet chocolate chips.

Maybe next time I'll just add the chocolate chunks to the oatmeal in the food processor... I could see that working out well. The other problem I ran into with this recipe was cinnamon. The recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of cinnamon as well as a teaspoon and a half of cinnamon extract. It turned out that I didn't have the extract and I was just short of having enough cinnamon. oops.

In the end the final cookies were quite good, but probably not for most consumers. In my version (and yes, I realize it's because I skipped things) there wasn't quite enough chocolate to satisfy my chocolate urges. The cinnamon flavor was very nice as it was, but I'm interested in trying it with cinnamon extract (which I now have) to kick up the flavor even more. The cookies finish with an interesting spicy, smoky bite from the chipotle powder and from my taste tests the level of spice seems to vary from cookie to cookie, but it has gotten uniformly stronger as the cookies sit in a tupperware container.

If/when I make them again I will almost certainly tweak the recipe a bit -- increasing the chocolate by a lot and adding the extract like it called for. Good cookies for sure, and definitely different, but I wouldn't make them for kids and from my experience they're a bit harder to get rid of than most cookies.



Creamables
2 sticks butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups finely ground oatmeal
1 cup finely ground graham crackers
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cinnamon chips
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
2.5 oz milk chocolate, microplaned
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, microplaned
2 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Topping
turbinado sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
3. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients and whisk together until smooth.
4. Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
5. In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.
6. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
7. Shape dough into balls--about 2 tablespoons each.
8. Roll each dough ball evenly in turbinado sugar
9. Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.
10. Bake at 350º for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.