For research purposes only...

I very well couldn't let all my friends blog about Nigella Express without actually giving the book a go myself.

I convinced myself that in order to give an honest opinion of the book, I would have to try a recipe, and one that is chocolatey, because isn't chocolate the best judgment of everything after all?

I very unwillingly made Nigella's Chocolate Mint Cookies, because that would have been the greatest sacrifice for my craft.

Nigella Express - Chocolate Mint Cookies

Ingredients

100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
150g flour
35g cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g dark chocolate chips

For the Glaze:
75g icing sugar

1 x 15ml tablespoon cocoa sieved
2 x 15ml tablespoons boiling water
1/4 tsp peppermint extract (I used McCormick Peppermint Extract)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4.

2. Cream the butter with the brown sugar and then beat in the vanilla extract and the egg.

3. Mix the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat into the creamed mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Using a rounded 15ml tablespoon spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet leaving a little space in between each one.

5. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes and let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack with some newspaper beneath to catch any escaping glaze.

6. Put the glaze ingredients into a saucepan and heat until combined.

7. Using a teaspoon zig zag the glaze over each cooling cookie.

I didn't put cocoa in the glaze, because I wanted to make it look like peppermint glaze. I am not subtle in my approach to cooking! LOL. These cookies are awesome! They are like brownie cookies. Soft and chewy, but still crunchy in parts. The chocolate chips ooze out, and the glaze is a perfect accompaniment to these dark and very chocolatey cookies. This is the type of cookie when all you want is chocolate and nothing else in the entire world will do!