Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

I have a new tradition. Every Sunday I bring some treats for the employees at Kokua Market. Yay! I have people to bake for! (Seriously, if I ate everything I made...I'd be like 200lbs by now). So this week I made some Mexican Hot Chocolate Cooookies :) 

Basically, when I want to bake something I get this anxious feeling inside, like a big ball of energy inside of me that needs to explodeee! Okay, yeah that sounds crazy...but seriously, something like that happens! And if I don't let it explode I get frustrated. Something about baking is just so therapeutic. So to solve this exploding sensation I browse for recipes. Not to sound corny or anything...but they inspire me! It's exciting! I think of flavor combinations, recipe combinations, cooking techniques...I think to myself: what I can do to make something taste supah magical? So I usually hit up these websites (& others):

• Punchfork
• Allrecipes
• Foodgawker
• Pinterest

These always lead me to really cool blogs and inspiring recipes! From there I either follow a recipe that sounds good or I mix a few together. 

For the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies I used a few websites for inspiration. Well actually, Mexican hot chocolate itself is what inspired me...I bought some the day before because it's getting chilly here in Honolulu (haaa!). But yeah allrecipes helped me out for these. 

Ingredients: 

• 2 sticks butter (room temp.)
• 1 C white sugar
• 1/2 C light brown sugar (packed!)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 C AP flour
• ~3/4 C cocoa powder (I used a lot...I really like chocolate.)
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1.5-2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 2 C semisweet or dark chocolate chips

Shake n bake emmm cookie timeeeeee!

1. Preheat your oven to 350 (F) degrees (if you want to bake the cookies right away! If you're going to chill the dough...wait, conserve energy please!)
2. Mix your butter and sugar (white & brown) together until fluffy. You can use a mixer, I don't because I don't have one in my apartment. I'm sure it could make your life easier! 
3. Next, mix in your eggs! And that vanilla extract mmmm!
4. Mix in your cocoa powder (slowly...or else it might explode out of your bowl and onto you), salt, cinnamon & cayenne pepper
5. Add your flour now, I add mine in like 3 parts so that it doesn't explode everywhere because dry ingredients like to do that sometimes.
6. Fold in your chocolate chips.
7. Dough is complete! I prefer to refrigerate my dough for a bit before baking them. So pop em in the fridge if you like for about 30-60 minutes. (If you're eager, I guess you can get away with skipping this step). Also, you might wanna preheat your oven now...if you're putting the dough in the fridge. 
8. When you're ready to make the cookies. Scoop dough balls that are about 1.5 Tbsp.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes
10. Let them coooool (at least for a minute!) then enjoy :) They're super good melty and warm with vanilla ice cream oohlalaaaa

IF YOU REALLY LIKE TO MAKE COOKIES. 

Please, buy one of these. 

I finally got one! A COOKIE SCOOPER! I decided it was time to treat myself to a lil' somthin'-somthin' because finals are coming and the stress is overwhelming sometimes. If you aren't a baker you might not realize how convenient this little gadget is, but seriously...life changing in regards to cookie making. No messy hands. No ghetto two-spoon scraping (the cookies won't be the same size yo). This thing made my day. Totally work the 13$. I'm sure you could get a cheaper on online...but thank you, Williams-Sonoma, for the instant gratification :)