The best cookies EVER!

Do you tend to pass by the Christmas cookies because they're always the same-old same-old?

Yeah, me too. Until now.

I stumbled across a recipe on a blog for chili chocolate cookies. I'm in love with chili chocolate bars (Like the Lindt ones) so I thought they sounded great. I printed off the recipe and prepared to make it but realized there wasn't anything even remotely chocolate in there. I tried to contact the author but she didn't get back to me, so I went Googling for a new one.

I found a recipe for Aztec Chocolate Cookies at Savour Fare (on the site it says it was adapted from Martha Stewart)and decided to give it a try. Boy am I glad I did!

I went to the high end of the chili pepper and I found the need for some more liquid because my dough wasn't doughy at all, but very dry, so I added an egg, which worked out very well. I was probably a little heavier on the chocolate chips, too. It was so good, I ate a lot of the dough before it could even become a cookie.

The recipe, adapted from Savour Fare, which adapted it from Martha Stewart:

1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tb. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground chipotle chili pepper
1 tb. cocoa powder
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 cup packed dark brown cugar
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
7 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (I basically gave each of my boys a handful of chips to snack on and just dumped the rest of the 12-ounce bag in!)
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Combine flour, spices and cocoa powder in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add honey and vanilla and beat until combined.
Dissolve baking soda in 1 1/2 tsp. hot water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture and egg, then rest of flour. Mix in chocolate chips and refrigerate dough for about a half hour. Try not to eat all the dough because it's awesome.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment or waxed paper. Scoop up spoonfuls of dough and roll into balls. (Original recipe said 2-inch balls. I think mine were smaller. Whatever.) Roll balls in granulated sugar and place on baking sheet. Flatten slightly.

Bake 20 minutes or so until surface is slightly cracked.

These taste like chocolate-chip gingersnaps with a warm afterburn. AMAZING! They're quite spicy but my kids even liked them, and we're all wimps when it comes to hot stuff.

I fully admit to eating about 90% of this batch myself. It was insanely good and I should probably not make them ever again or I'll gain ten pounds.

Hope you like 'em! :)

Oh, sorry there are no photos. I couldn't stop stuffing them in my face long enough to take any. They look like brown chocolate chip cookies.