What a name, eh? These beauties are made of chocolate dough with chocolate chips in it, rolled in chocolate sprinkles (or drizzled with chocolate for sprinkle haters), and topped with a chocolate kiss. Sounds good, right? They were amazing! I found this recipe some time ago at the Blissfully Domestic blog (such a great blog, by the way), and just had to try them. I thought they would be wonderful Christmas cookies, and boy, was I right! I'll post the original recipe first, but, as usual, I altered it quite a bit, so I'll re-post the recipe with my changes.Super Duper Chocolate Kiss Cookies
Ingredients:
16.5 oz package of refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup chocolate-flavored sprinkles
2 tablespoons milk
40 Dark Chocolate Hershey's kisses, unwrapped
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large Ziploc bag, combine the cookie dough and cocoa powder. Seal the bag and knead it with your hands until the dough is well mixed.
3. Put chocolate sprinkles in a shallow bowl, and then the milk in another shallow bowl.
4. Remove the dough from the plastic baggie and start forming them into 1-inch balls.
5. Dip the balls in the milk, just to moisten them, and then roll them in the sprinkles.
6. Place these balls two inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
7. Bake for approximately eight minutes, or until the edges are firm.
8. Immediately press a Hershey's kiss into the center of each cookie. Transfer the cookies onto a wire rack and let cool.
Makes approximately 36 cookies. These can be frozen for up to three months after baking them.
The first thing I did was decide to double the recipe! With a family like mine, especially on a holiday like Christmas, I needed more than 36 dinky little cookies! So I went out and bought a 36 oz. bag of assorted kisses. The bag included dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and chocolate 'meltaways.' I couldn't find any that were already unwrapped (bummer!) so I set my husband to unwrapping! We mostly just used the dark chocolate, but tried some meltaways to see if they made a difference (you can't tell they aren't normal kisses after their baked, so don't bother), and reserved some milk chocolate ones for drizzling. Instead of buying two 16.5 oz. tubes of dough, I just bought a 30 oz. tube. It was much cheaper, so I just went with it. I left it out to get to room temperature so that I could easily mix in the cocoa powder (there's no way I was going to try and scrape cookie dough out of a baggie, so I nixed that and just used a wooden spoon and a huge bowl.) I used double the cocoa powder that the recipe called for even though I didn't exactly double the dough. I figured it would just be extra chocolate-y, and who doesn't like that? At first, it was difficult to mix the dough, but after mixing for just a couple minutes, the dough became glossy and a beautiful chocolate color. (As a raw dough, it had a slightly bitter taste from the cocoa, but this cooked out.)I didn't have a small ice cream scoop to make same-sized dough balls (my favorite way of doing it), and I was running out of time, so I pat the dough into an inch thick disk, wrapped it in plastic, and tossed it in the fridge. I figured it would be easier to handle if it was cold, and the cocoa would have a chance to really flavor the dough. When I took it out, I cut the disk into 3/4 inch squares, rolled them into balls with my hand, dipped them into milk, then into the sprinkles.
I soon found that dipping them into milk first is just not an efficient way of doing things. The milk got the sprinkles in my bowl wet and made them clumpy, it made my hands gooey, and didn't help the sprinkles stick to the dough at all. I skipped the milk and just rolled the balls in the sprinkles. This worked perfectly. The sprinkles stuck very well and they looked so cute all lined up on parchment paper. I made some without sprinkles (a particular husband of mine thinks that sprinkles are a waste of stomach space) and melted some chocolate to drizzle on top instead.
I baked them for about 8 minutes, took them out and put a kiss in them, and let them cool on my cookie rack. When they come out, they are very soft, and a few broke and fell through the cracks in my cookie racks, so be wary of that. As soon as they cool enough to bite into, eat one! They taste like brownies when warm, especially with a melted puddle of chocolate kiss/chocolate goo on top! Sooooo good! All in all, they were a hit. They were super chocolate-y and a nice change from peanut butter kiss cookies. I will definitely be making them again!Here is the recipe, my way:
Super Duper Chocolate Kiss Cookies (otherwise known as Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chocoate Kiss Cookies =D)
Ingredients:
30 oz package of refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup chocolate-flavored sprinkles
70 dark chocolate kisses, unwrapped
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine room temperature cookie dough and cocoa powder in a large bowl. Pat into an inch thick disk, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for an hour or more. (Chilling it is optional, but the dough is less gummy and very easy to handle when cold.)
3. Cut the dough into 3/4 inch squares, roll each square into a ball with your hands, roll them in sprinkles, and place them on parchment paper covered cookie sheets, 2 inches apart. Note: Dark pans/cookie sheets heat up faster and stay at a higher temperate than lighter pans. This extra heat causes the cookies to spread out too much and cook too fast. This results in cookies that are well done on the bottoms and underdone on the top, as well as being thinner than desired. Be sure to use light colored pans/cookie sheets, keep your dough chilled, and try to stagger your pans so that you are putting cookies on cool baking sheets, instead of hot ones. Trust me, you'll have a taller, softer, more evenly cooked cookie everytime.
I was in a hurry and didn't take pictures of the cookies when they were just cooled. I've been kicking myself for forgetting! So I rounded up the few 'rejects' or 'ugly' ones that didn't make it to my display plate and photographed them. There was only one cookie without sprinkles left, and I don't think they look as good, but I showed it anyway. You'll have to forgive the terrible quality of my camera, and keep in mind that these are the 'ugly', broken, or oddball ones. They're delicious though!
I hope you make these for your family!
