Pecan Decadence Cookies

Want a rich, bittersweet, fudgy cookie with the smooth crunch of pecans?  Look no further, this is your recipe.

Recipe adapted from: Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich
Ingredients
225g dark chocolate
25g butter
2 eggs
100g white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
40g flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter/margarine)
170g chocolate chunks or chocolate chips
200g pecans or walnuts, chopped

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175 C (350 F).

2. Melt the 225g dark chocolate with the butter and stir until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

3. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together.

4. When the chocolate mixture is cool, mix it into the chocolate.

5. Stir the flour, baking powder and salt (if you're using it) into the batter.  Resist the urge to add more flour - due to the high concentration of chocolate, this batter hardens up pretty quickly!

6. Stir the chopped nuts (I used pecans) and chocolate chunks into the mixture until they're evenly distributed.

7. Scoop out spoonfuls of batter and place onto your baking paper/silicone sheet covered baking tray.  Make sure to let the batter fall exactly where you want it because it's difficult to move these babies without making a mess!  Keep them quite far apart because they flatten out quite a lot.

8. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes or until the surface of the cookies looks dry and has cracked.  Don't bake them too long because you want the centres to be gooey.

9. Let the cookies cool on their trays and then transfer them to a drying rack to cool completely.  Alternatively, eat them fresh out of the oven when the chocolate's still melty inside.

Yum.