Chocolate Fudgey Bickie, you little darlin' you

So FUDGEY!

Fudgey bickies, aren't they great (that's rhetorical, they are great. Thus no question mark). Or fudgey cookies, they are good too. I've been thinking about them lately. I had decided to make a batch for a friend as she was about to have a nasty piece of news broken to her. By me. So I thought that I'd soften the blow with lots of dark chocolate and a sort of lovely soft gooey centre. It didn't actually end up working like that, as I didn't manage to get my shit together for the cookies to be done in time and I told her the news on skype, thus letting her suffer by herself, at home.

I did buy a piece of flourless cake for her when I saw her tho. Also the piece of news was about some data storage at work, not that I had inadvertently killed one of her children or erased her entire weird and ear-crushing music collection.

But, the other day, unbidden, the need to make the cookies bubbled up in me much like a laugh. Like a child's laugh. Also I did have a child with me who was looking for some amusement - this helped too. I checked: I had all the ingredients, the child was in a malleable yet friendly mood - it seemed like kismet. Or another B grade musical. Here they are - the "Rich Chocolate Cookies". That title doesn't do them any justice at all - it should be "Sexual Healing in a Rich Chocolate Cookie Cookies". They're good. Several people agree.


Ingredients:

We're the ingredients, we're here to make something

125g butter
200g dark chocolate chopped
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs beaten
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup SR flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup of walnuts chopped - if you like. I don't. But whatever.

Transferred.

Place butter and chocolate in a saucepan over a low heat and let them get all melty together. Let them wrap themselves around each other until they are indistinguishable as their original selves, let the music swell!!!

Then transfer them immediately to another - bigger bowl. Try to unsuccessfully stop your child from licking the saucepan out. I say try, we all know how that will end.

Add the sugar eggs and vanilla and mix well. Funny word "well" - I would say that it's subjective as to what someone thinks that means. I am something of an overachiever and when someone says "do that job well" to me, I usually think that there will be some late nights, some tears of frustration, a few recriminations and then a pat on the back at the end after the photo finish.

I probably ALWAYS mix things too much.

Mixing it up.

I'm-a going in the fridge.

Also I had the wee man in the "mix" as well. He loves to mix and also to smell. His first question is "Can I smell it?" followed by "Can I mix it?".   I usually say yes to both - because frankly there's no stopping him. Lately he has taken to saying to me "Calm down, calm down, relax" whenever I try and argue anything - this has the diffuse effect of rendering me annoyed, speechless and amused at the same time.



Sift the flours and the cocoa into the chocolatey mix and then add the walnuts, if you are using them. Which is fine. Whatever. Refrigerate for an hour. Yes, you heard me. An hour. Then enjoy the sound of your son repeating, as if stuck like a record "Is it an hour yet?". We played marbles. 

Scientific strap of my bathrobe used to hem in the pesky marbles. 

I can confirm that "marbles" was never meant to be played on actual marble.It's virtually impossible, they just roll away. Again and again. So we employed phase one of the marble game - the bathrobe strap. This partially did the job, but was still presenting challenges in that the marbles just rolled aimlessly around inside the strap, like lost mice. Phase two, which I didn't photograph, was a towel. Much better. So much better. I kicked Gabe's adorable plump little backside.

You should have preheated your oven to 180c and also lined a few trays with baking paper - instead of played marbles. I did that too.

This is our destiny.

Roll them into balls. It won't be hard, they want to be balls. The recipe suggests a "heaped teaspoon" - The mix doesn't spread much - so knock yourself out. I should have popped a five dollar note next to these to give you a comparative sense of size. They are about the size of a good sized small ball.

Bake these suckers for 12 to 15 minutes - ok now this is genuinely tricky. No marbles now. No nothing people. Watch these babies. They are simply not as nice when overcooked. You want people to enjoy them fudgey, NOT with the depressing sense that they were fudgey. I overcooked these. When the tops crack - they really only need a minute more. Move one with your finger and see if it will budge off its spot on the paper. If it does GET THEM OUT!

So they were all gone within 3 days - and I made a bazillion. Guaranteed winner. Make them. Do it. Play marbles too, you curmudgeon!