Aztec Cookies

Background
Every year I get this thing I call "Christmas Cookie Rage", defined as the anger you feel when someone guilt trips you into eating one of their cookies which, while pretty, are inevitably lacking in every department except caloric value. This year, I decided to upset the pattern by baking my own cookies (despite not celebrating Christmas and all that). To that end, I polled my friends as to what kind of cookie they wanted.

The answer was fairly unanimous: chocolate chip. Daniel and Claire expressed a clear preference for small, chewy cookies, which I agree with; it is a truth universally acknowledged that if you eat four or five smaller cookies, you're doing a better job of sticking to your diet than if you eat like one really big one. As for the chewy versus crispy problem, I'm equally comfortable with both, though I have a slight preference for crispy (I enjoy a chocolate chip shortbread or biscotti, but I can tell which way the wind is blowing.) The major issue that remained to be addressed was that of sugar: Dan and Claire both prefer something less sweet, while I eat sugar directly from the container[1].

What we needed was a chocolate chip cookie that was both sweet and had a bit of a kick to it.

Ah-ha, sez I.

A couple years ago, I was really into the Aztecs. I studied their myths, knew about their gods, even taught myself Nahuatl. So when I needed chocolate with a kick, I knew exactly where to look.

I used this recipe as a starting point (found by googling for "the best cookies ever"), but as you'll see, the finished product is not really related.

Ingredients

1/2 c. margarine
2 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2.5 tsp ginger
2.5 tsp Cayenne
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
a sprinkling of black pepper and cardamom

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 375*. Grease cookie sheets.

2. Mix the wet ingredients (margarine, brown sugar, eggs) with a mixer (I broke out the immersion blender again because it is the greatest thing ever). Add the vanilla.

3. Add in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, spices). I added one cup of flour, then the spices, then the other cup, because I was worried about the spices not getting distributed enough if the batter was too thick, but the batter wasn't too thick.

4. Add the chocolate chips.

5. Make tablespoon-sized cookies on baking sheets about an inch apart and bake for about 6 minutes in the middle of the oven. Let them cool about 2 minutes on the sheet before you remove them to a rack or whatever.

Makes about 41 cookies, at a scant 88 calories/cookie.

Notes

It's hard to balance the spices on this, because everything is less spicy after baking. The batter was almost too spicy, but the cookies are less so. I am taking some over to Dan and Claire tonight and we will see what they think I am pretty happy with the recipe though.

[1] Okay maybe not, because that's kind of gross.