Chocolate Crackle Cookies

It's finally come - tomorrow is my surgery.  And today is my Pre-Op appointment in Boston to go over what the surgery is about and everything that will be done to my wrist to make me better.  So I thought that yesterday would be my final day of baking for a while and why not make my sisters things that they have been asking me for.  Immediately I knew what I would make for Heays - her all time favorite cookie....ever.  I found this one years ago, back when Martha Stewart was aired on the Food Network.  I printed this out and made them, and the love affair began.  So did my tinkering with recipes.  I've now got this recipe to where I love it - and have worked all the short cuts out as well. 

The recipe itself for these Chocolate Crackle Cookies is a little overwhelming when you read it the first time.  But trust me, it's really easy.  And I'm going to share my short cuts with you to make it even easier.  The dough part stays the same - all the short cuts come after.  Once the dough is ready - don't portion it out into plastic wrap.  Trust me - you are just adding way too many steps.  Put it in a large bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  The longer you let it sit in there, the better the cookies will be.  I usually let them sit in there over night, but 4 hours is what they got yesterday and that is plenty of time.  You also don't need to roll them out into individual logs and put them in plastic wrap.   Waste of time and effort.  Just keep it in the bowl as a solid unit.....took me years of making these cookies, cursing at them every time because they were so labor intensive, and then once my hand got hurt I couldn't make them at all - too much and too hard for me.  So, the important thing to learn here is to skip all the rolling out into plastic wrap and just leave it in a bowl to chill. 

Once you are ready to bake - all you need to do is take a spoon and scoop out the dough, roll it into a ball and then roll that ball into sugar and then confectioners sugar.  This is much easier than cutting the roll of dough that you would of made and then turning that into a ball and then rolling it into the sugars.  I'm saving you loads of time here...trust me :)  These don't expand a lot so you can pack a lot on the sheets at once.

that's right...15 on one sheet :)

While baking, they crack and you can see the chocolate underneath - and your house will smell amazing. 

so pretty

Heays got home from work and I told her she had a present for her in the cookie jar.  Her face was priceless when she opened the lid and saw her favorite cookies there.  Needless to say these don't last long - they are highly addicting.