If there is anything better first thing in the morning than one of these cookies with a freshly made Americana, I sure as heck don’t know what it is! I mean really, sipping wonderful coffee and taking tiny little bites of one of these cookies (like anyone could really limit themselves to one cookie) is just about the ideal way to wake up in the morning. (The only thing better is a second Americana, again made by the resident barista, and of course another cookie!)

And talk about easy! These simple bar cookies are a snap to make. You just cream some butter and powdered sugar together, add a few more simple ingredients, slam the dough into a pan, bake it for awhile, cut the cookies while they are still warm, and let them cool to room temperature. (Letting the cookies cool to room temperature can be a little difficult, but you’re an adult, you can control yourself for such a short time!)

And the best part! You can eat these cookies at other times of day besides first thing in the morning! It’s just as acceptable as drinking beer with other meals besides breakfast.

So go ahead and serve these cookies before or after lunch, as a mid-afternoon snack, a snack before dinner, a dessert after dinner, a bed-time snack, or at two in the morning when the cookies call to you from the cookie jar. (At least my shortbread calls to me from the kitchen in the wee small hours of the morning. Of course, you may not be so lucky!)

So next time you need a quick and easy treat, bake up a batch of these bar cookies. Your family will love you for it. Your friends and the people you work with will think you’re the bomb. (The people on your bus, not so much.) They are only going to be able to experience these cookies olfactorily. Just don’t be offended if your fellow bus riders aren’t as enthusiastic about your efforts as the people at work. Enjoy the recipe.

• 1½ c. (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• ¾ c. powdered sugar
• 1½ tsp. vanilla
• 3 c. un-bleached all-purpose flour
• ¾ tsp. powdered ginger
• ½ tsp. salt (if using salted butter, add only ¼ tsp. salt)
• ¼ tsp. baking powder
• 2/3 c. finely chopped candied ginger (also called crystallized ginger)
• 1 T. granulated sugar

With an electric mixer, beat butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat until smooth. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, ground ginger, salt, and baking powder. Stir in the candied ginger until all the ginger pieces are covered with flour. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing just until a dough forms. Scoop the dough into a 9×13-inch glass baking pan, pat into place, and level off the top with an offset spatula. Prick the dough well with a fork. Sprinkle on the tablespoon of granulated sugar.

Bake the shortbread in a pre-heated 325 degree oven for 40-50 minutes, or until the top is a light golden brown. (Don’t under-bake.)

Cool the shortbread on a rack for 6 minutes. While the shortbread is still warm, cut into desired size pieces. Serve at room temperature.

These cookies bring out the very worst in me. I simply can not leave them alone, even though I know refined sugar and my stomach (the picky thing that it has become) will forever more remain at odds. So when my brain tells me to step away from the cookies for the sake of my stomach, my taste buds still yearn for the younger me who could eat anything with impunity. It’s like my taste buds have a mind of their own! So my question to you is this; why aren’t the various areas of my body working together as a team? Is it really that unreasonable to expect my body parts to join forces to keep me healthy in my (uh hum) – golden years? Well apparently it must be an unrealistic expectation. Because from everything I can tell, my taste buds, while certainly more sophisticated than when I was young, still work as well as they did when I was 19. Reverse those 2 numbers today and you have the approximate working mental age of my brain! (Or so it seems.) Although my brain still guides me in the right direction when it comes to matters of common sense (like what I should or should not be eating), it can no longer remember why I entered a room, or the last word in many of my sentences! Now if only my taste buds would slow down and my brain would speed us, we might actually forge a meeting of the “minds”. Wouldn’t that be delightful!

So in many ways, when it comes to these cookies, my only recourse is to have Mr. C. hide them. Although this works, it’s really not very dignified. But sometimes a little lack of dignity is good for the soul. Proves you’re human and all. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Now I know the most obvious solution would be to discontinue baking this cookie, thus keeping me off the path of temptation. But how nice would that be for others if I simply stopped making any type of food because it was too tempting for me to exhibit restraint? Nope, I can’t do that. So I’m going to continue making these cookies and let the chips (chocolate of course) fall where they will. As for you, if you really love a dark chocolate cookie with a lovely minty essence, I would advise you build some of these at your earliest convenience. They are truly over the top delicious.

• 1 c. unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• ¾ tsp. premium peppermint extract
• 2 c. flour
• ¾ c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 c. semisweet chocolate chips (I use the miniature chips)

Cream the butter and sugar until soft. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla and peppermint extract. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter mixture. Blend well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful or small ice cream scoop onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 8-9 minutes. Cookies will be soft. Do not over-bake. Cool for a couple of minutes on cookie sheet; remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container. Hide cookies from your family. (If you want any for yourself, this instruction must be followed to the letter!)

So, I’m trying very hard to stay away from refined sugar. Not because I have diabetes, but because as I advance in years, my stomach either likes what I feed it or it doesn’t. And refined sugar is now on my tummies “you will no longer be tolerated” list. And I’m telling you, my tummy can be a very strict disciplinarian! So in order not to feel like I’m pregnant, suffering from stomach flu, or about to pass a kidney stone, I acquiesce to my stomachs demands.

So when Mr. C received some chocolate shortbread cookies from our friend Deanne, and raved about them, I decided to find a recipe for dark chocolate cookies to serve at our next JazzVox pre-concert meal.

I must tell you, Mr. C was not impressed with the first cookie he tasted from this recipe. He thought it almost tasted burnt. I think that was because the cookie was still slightly warm and he was used to a much sweeter chocolate cookie; one containing either milk or semi-sweet chocolate. So instead of throwing the cookies away, I decided to add a little white chocolate for balance. Even then, I almost threw out the entire double batch. But Mr. C decided I should serve them anyway; that upon further reflection, they weren’t so bad after all. Mighty magnanimous of him, wouldn’t you say? (Actually I trust his sense of taste as much as I trust my own. Well – almost.) Anyway, the upshot of this entire unnecessary dissertation is that I did serve them to our guests and they were a huge hit! In fact, the word “wow” literally escaped from our friend Peggy’s mouth with her very first bite.

So if you are a dark chocolate lover, and appreciate crisp cookies that are not too sweet, this easy refrigerator cookie is the one for you. And as with any cookie, the sugar and salt are hygroscopic and soak up moisture from the atmosphere. So in order to keep these or any other cookies crisp, always store them in an airtight container. Transversely, with cookies that are better on the soft side, like ginger cookies for example, place them in a container that is not air tight. (And no, I was not a science major in college. I still can’t even begin to understand why the Doppler Effect sounds to me like a descending line of music!) Enjoy!

• 2¼ c. all-purpose flour
• ¼ c. unsweetened cocoa
• ½ c. sugar
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 squares (2-oz.) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
• ½ c. finely chopped hazelnuts
• melted white chocolate

Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor or heavy duty mixer. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour mixture. Mix until mixture resembles moist sand. Add the melted chocolate and nuts and continue mixing until a dough forms. Place dough on a long piece of plastic wrap. Using your hands, wrap the dough into the plastic wrap gently shaping it into a round log about 1½-inch wide. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Un-wrap the log and using a serrated knife slice dough 3/8-inch thick. (If dough feels really hard, leave at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing). Arrange slices, about 1-inch apart, on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake the cookies in a pre-heated 300 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until lightly golden brown on the bottom and fairly hard to the touch. (Do not under-bake.) Cool on the baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes. Gently transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. When the cookies are completely cool, decorate them with melted white chocolate. After the white chocolate is completely set (it will take a couple of hours) store the cookies in an airtight container.