Those are absolutely gorgeous, bons! I made some last week also, and I have to agree they're some of the best CC cookies I've ever tasted. I used Ghirardelli 60% chips instead of the disks, and I aged the dough for about 50 hours before I had a chance to bake them. I've got eight cookie balls packed in a vacuum-sealed bag in the freezer, because we couldn't eat all those huge cookies in a single week. I'll be interested to see how they hold up when I defrost and bake. But this is now a go-to recipe. I'm another weirdo who prefers them cooled to warm out of the oven. I like that little nugget of firm chocolate instead of the hot ooze. This is probably a subject more suited to the therapist's office, though.

I like the world peace cookies. World peace Cookies Excerpted from Baking: From My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Dorie Greenspan. Makes about 36 cookies I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I've never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sablé family. But, unlike classic sablés, they are midnight dark there's cocoa in the dough and packed with chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they're salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It's the salt Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound. When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold, who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre's cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness. * 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour * 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder * 1/2 teaspoon baking soda * 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature * 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar * 1/4 cup sugar * 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt * 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract * 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips 1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together. 2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more. 3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate. 4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.) Getting Ready to Bake: 5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. 6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them. 7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

I bake little to nothing other than cookies so I'm no baking expert but I finally got a recipe from a friend that works for me. Pillowy, chewy cookies vs. some previous pancake flat or rock hard recipes I've tried. I don't refrigerate the dough, I use butter and I bake using convection. What I have noticed after using this recipe many times is that the outcome in terms of plump vs. flat does seem to have something to do with how soft the butter is. Yesterday I made them and remembered to take the butter out early so it just softened on the counter. It wasn't all that soft when I made them and they turned out perfect in my opinion. Other times I've had to carefully soften the butter in the microwave. The softer the butter the flatter the cookies. And the harder the butter the more ball shaped the cookies end up. I can also tell the difference in the consistency of the dough - even though all the ingredients are the same. If the dough is "dry" enough that I can form the cookies into a ball then they turn out great (I do make them into balls rather than dropping by spoonful). If it's stickier they end up flatter. If my theory is true, then chilling the dough in the fridge makes sense as the fat would harden as it chills.

My method is perfect for brownie brittle. And yes it's hard like peanut brittle. You just break it into pieces by hand. Buy a pkg of chocolate brownie mix, 10 oz size. I buy Marie Callender's, from Dollar Tree, but Betty Crocker has one at Wall Mart. Both are the fudge brownie mixes and both work. Just follow the recipe below for the brittle Add to the mix, 1 egg, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup oil. Spray a cookie sheet, the one I use is 15 x 10.***I NOW use parchment paper which I spray the corners on the bottom to keep it from sliding. Spread the batter thinly all over the cookie sheet and evenly. I use a spatula. Then with fingers, take chocolate morsels and sprinkle about 1/2 cup or more over the batter. Bake 325 for 30 minutes. Turn oven off and let sit inside oven for 30 more minutes. Brownies will be hard. Let them cool completely, and make sure the chocolate morsels are cooled and hard. Lift up at one end with a fork, and break into pieces. Store in an airtight container. Eat and enjoy!