Contents
A fudgy chocolate dough rolled in powdered sugar, which cracks open into white fissures as the cookie spreads. The pattern is not decoration applied to the cookie — it is the cookie's own expansion showing through a coating that cannot stretch, and everything about the method is in service of making that crack happen cleanly.
What makes it work
- Two coatings, granulated then powdered. The granulated layer dissolves into a thin syrup barrier that stops the powdered sugar being absorbed into the wet dough. Skip it and the white vanishes into grey patches in the oven — this is the single fix for the most common complaint about these.
- Coat thickly. Absurdly thickly. The ball should look like a snowball. Half of it melts.
- The dough must be chilled hard, four hours minimum. It is a wet, oil-and-egg dough with no creamed butter, and warm it spreads flat and cracks into one ragged fault rather than a network.
- Pull them underdone. The centre should be visibly soft. Baked through, they are dry and the cracks close.
- Oil, not butter. Oil keeps the crumb fudgy at room temperature; butter firms up and the cookie reads as cakey.
Ingredients
Makes about 30.
- 120 ml neutral oil, or olive oil for a mild fruitiness
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 100 g light brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla — see Pure vanilla extract
- 100 g cocoa powder — see Cocoa and cocoa mixes
- 250 g all-purpose flour
- 8 g baking powder
- 4 g fine salt
- 100 g granulated sugar, for the first roll
- 150 g powdered sugar, for the second
Method
Whisk the oil, both sugars, eggs and vanilla until glossy. Sift in the cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt and fold to a thick, sticky, brownie-like batter.
Cover and refrigerate at least four hours, or overnight. It stiffens to a dough you can roll.
Roll 30 g balls. Roll each first in granulated sugar, then heavily in powdered sugar. Space them 5 cm apart.
Bake 175 °C / 350 °F for 10–12 minutes. They puff, crack, and should still be soft in the middle when you take them out. Cool five minutes on the tray.
Notes
- Dutch-process cocoa gives the darker colour and needs the baking powder in this recipe; natural cocoa is more acidic and tastes fruitier.
- The same technique makes lemon and ginger crinkles: swap the cocoa for 40 g more flour and the zest of two lemons.
- Keeps four days. The sugar coat goes damp before the cookie stales.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Cookie recipes · cookies · Chocolates · sugar in baking
Nearby: chocolate tahini cookies · peanut butter blossoms · chocolate chip cookies