Chocolate Chocolate Spiced Rum Cookies

As we all know, we are knee deep into holiday baking season and I wanted to make all new cookies this year and I get sick of making lime meltaways and gingersnaps year after year, even if that disappoints some of my people. I had great success with  Chai Tea Cookies, Cardamom Quince Layer Cookies and Chocolate Dipped Gingery Pecan Shortbread and wanted one last cookie to round things out. I guess it's because my kid is no longer little that I am gravitating towards more grown up flavours and away from just sweet and easy. After a wine fueled pinning frenzy, I found these cookies on Rock Recipes and couldn't get them out of my mind. The basic cookie dough looked great but I detest chocolate mint chips with a white hot passion. Actually, I only like fresh mint and have never found any sort of food item that contains any sort of mint extract that I would want to eat. I also really prefer chocolate to anything else so I used his basic cookie recipe and then changed it to suit my desires, subbing the mint chocolate chips and adding some spiced rum for good measure. The chocolate drizzle is a nice touch but not necessary because these babies are plenty chocolately even without it.

Chocolate Chocolate Spiced Rum Cookies

adapted from Double Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies from Barry Parson


1 1/4 cup butter, room temp
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tbls spiced rum
3/4 cup cocoa ( I use the PC Black Label stuff - very intense chocolate flavour)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
150 g chopped dark 70% chocolate
*optional chocolate drizzle - 50g dark chocolate and 1 tbls butter

Cream together the butter and sugar. I like to cream for at least four or five minutesAdd the eggs, vanilla and spiced rum and beat for another 20 seconds or so.Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt (i just dump it all in a big bowl and use a whisk)Add the dry to the creamed butter mixture and and mix on the slowest speed until it forms into a dough. I had to scrape down the sides a few times. Add the chopped chocolate and let it take another few turns at the lowest speed until the chocolate is just incorporated into the dough.Cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least a few hours or overnight to make sure the dough is nice and cold when you bake them off.When it's time to bake Preheat the oven to 375FRoll the cold dough into 1" balls and put them a couple of inches apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Flatten them a little bit and bake them for 9 or 10 minutes.Let them cool for a few minutes on the pan before you remove them to a wire rack.*I reheated the chocolate glaze from my Chocolate Dipped Pecan Shortbread and drizzled that over the top. If you want to do that but didn't make the pecan shortbread (which you should do) just melt about 50 g dark chocolate with 1 tbls of butter in a small bowl over a small pot of simmering water , stirring constantly until its all melted and glossy. Use the spatula or a small spoon to dip into the melted chocolate and then whip it around over the cooled cookies while they sit on the rack over a parchment lined tray to catch the mess. Let them sit at least an hour until the glaze hardens.The original recipe says that the cookies and/or the dough freeze well for several weeks, so keep that in mind.