Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Got a card from Linda Owens this week. Christmas card, formal in the way of people who still send formal Christmas cards. Inside she'd written: Thank you for all you gave Derek, and all you've given since. Short. Direct. I read it three times and then put it on the shelf above my workbench where I can see it from the bench press when I'm working.

The letters and the card and the phone call — the relationship with the Owens family has become something I didn't expect and don't have a word for. She's not a friend exactly. She's not family. She's the mother of the man I was with when he died, and she's chosen to forgive me in a way that doesn't feel like mercy so much as truth — like she simply arrived at a factual conclusion that I wasn't responsible in any way that matters morally, and she acts from that conclusion without drama. That's a kind of grace. I don't know if I deserve it. I try to be the person who does.

Completed the therapeutic shoeing certification exam Friday. I'll have the results in three to four weeks. I felt good about it — there were three questions I wasn't sure of, which means I probably got at least two of those three right. The material has been sitting in my head long enough that it's stopped feeling like studying and started feeling like knowing. That shift is what the exam is supposed to measure.

Made pfeffernüsse cookies this week, which is a December tradition from Mom's side — her mother was partly German and the spiced shortbread was her version of a Christmas thing. Anise, clove, black pepper, cardamom. Small round cookies rolled in powdered sugar while warm. I don't particularly like anise most of the time but in these cookies it tastes like December, specifically, which is its own argument for the cookie. Some flavors exist to mark a moment rather than to satisfy the tongue.

I made the pfeffernu¨sse this week out of habit and memory, the way you do with family recipes, but when I went looking for something to share here — something that carries that same weight of a December baking day, the particular satisfaction of pulling something small and finished out of the oven — these chocolate brownie cookies were the ones that felt right. They’re not traditional in the German spice sense, but they have the same quality: dense, deliberate, a little intense, the kind of thing you make because the season calls for it and not because someone talked you into it. Linda’s card is still on the shelf. I baked both batches the same afternoon.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp fine salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Melt the base. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chopped bittersweet chocolate together, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
Whisk in sugar and eggs. Stir the granulated sugar into the chocolate mixture until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Combine dry ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.
Fold together. Add the dry ingredients to the chocolate mixture and stir until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips. The dough will be soft and glossy.
Chill the dough. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 20 minutes. While the dough chills, preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the tops are set and cracked but the centers still look slightly underdone.
Cool on the pan. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They will firm up as they cool and develop their brownie-like interior.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Brownie Cookies — What We Bake When a Season Asks for It