There are so many wonderful Christmas cookies, and I’ve made many of them. But the one that says Holidays to my family is the Chocolate Lump Cookie. Not to be confused with chocolate chip in its many fabulous forms. Chocolate Lump, withe the chocolate part coming from thick bars of milk chocolate. Even when we lived in Japan, we managed to find the right thickness and consistency of milk chocolate to make the perfect cookie.
I’m not sure where the recipe originated. Both my parents made the cookies, and neither one played around much with recipes. Most likely my father’s Wisconsin family came up with the original, and my parents never changed it. But why change what is darned near perfect?
The chocolate is of course the main component. For a while I was buying those ten pound (yep, ten POUND) bars of Ghiradelli chocolate for myself and also for family members who did not have a Trader Joe’s nearby
Ten POUNDS of milk chocolate. Yummm
Each of use would then chop the thick bar into chunks no bigger than half an inch. Considering the bar was more than an inch thick, that was a LOT of chopping. But worth it since the flavor was really spectacular. And it was just once a year.
Then came the year I went into TJs and they didn’t have the Ghiradelli. Nor were they planning to carry it again. I shared this, sadly, with my family, sending them into a mad fury of hunting out the ultimate thick milk chocolate. Until my brother in Texas pointed us toward large bars from one of the standard US chocolate manufacturers…the one with a town named after it. Yeah, them. He said his cookies came out pretty darned good.
Hmmm
Trader Joe’s Pound Plus
Then a perusal of the TJs shelves netted me a new and wondrous discovery—the “Pound Plus,” a 17.6 ounce bar of yummy goodness. Even better, it comes scored for easy breaking. How cool is that? Even better, by treating this bar as a regular pound of chocolate you automatically overload your cookie. Ahhh, bliss.
I found chilling the bar a bit made it easy to bang on the counter prior to chopping into lumps, shortening the prep time even more. The shorter the prep time, the sooner you can indulge.
Mind you, I haven’t made these cookies since I went cold turkey low carb last year, and I don’t know that I have the will power necessary to bake them and not gorge myself. Not yet anyway. But I can certainly share the recipe with you, even if I’m limiting myself to low carb shortbread. Which, incidentally, is pretty darned good!
So, Chocolate Lump Cookies: Measure 3 cups flour, then sift. Add 1 tsp each Baking Powder and Baking Soda, and 1/2 tsp salt. Set aside. Cream 1 cup Shortening (not butter, you want a very mild batter so you can really promote the chocolate) with 3/4 cup White Sugar and 3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar. Add in 1 tsp Vanilla and 3 Eggs. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients, and 3 Tbsp Hot Water. Then mix in 1.5 pounds Milk Chocolate, chunked, and 1 cup Pecans (you can add more pecans, I often do). Bake at 325-350F for about 15 minutes. The chocolate can burn if you’re not careful, which means you’ll have to keep those cookies at home, such a sacrifice.
These cookies freeze extremely well, and taste really good ice cold. Enjoy!
And for even more exciting cookie recipes:
Autumn Jordon
Heather Hiestand
Jane Wakely
Karen McCullough
Laurie London
Lily Rede
Tawny Weber
Vanessa Kelly
I’m told some of the original links are incorrect, here are the correct ones. Abject apologies!
Mona Karel Author 