This post was created in partnership with Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker to celebrate National Chocolate Day! All opinions are my own.
I’m a total Halloween failure. I nailed it as a kid: Pippy Longstockings (with the red hair, I was a shoe-in), a punk rocker (replete with spray-on neon hair color), disco Dorothy, and the list goes on. At some point, I think during college, though, Halloween started to feel like a stressful contest to see who could creatively rig the sexiest slash most ironic alas most ironically sexy outfit. Anxiety! I was neither interested in being the sexiest nor the most ironic person on campus (well, maybe, secretly). And so, gradually, I stopped doing Halloween.
The last time I dressed up, I found myself walking around the beach town of Paia (on my home island of Maui) in tears, stalking my ex-boyfriend as he cuddled with some girl dressed like a gypsy. DRAMA. I decided to swear off Halloween for good.
But every now and then, I see people taking costumes seriously, and I get a twinge of dress-up desire. My friend Suzanne and her boyfriend Henderson went to a Halloween party as wife-and-husband artist team Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and I felt a renewed tingle of interest. If I could dress up as a favorite artist, or writer, or, um, Beyoncé (?!?! what), perhaps I could be sold.
And then there’s the approach my young friend T. takes: He likes to dress up as himself. (How cool can one be at 12? Answer: VERY COOL.) Why would I want to be someone else? he wonders. Excellent question.
At the end of the day, this is the allure of Halloween, isn’t it? For one night, we can escape entirely from the person we’re supposed to be. For those (most) of us who haven’t yet reached T.’s glowing state of self-acceptance, it’s a day where we can be entirely other. We can be shiny, happy, omnipotent, liberated. Perhaps we all long to be asked who we would be if we could be anyone at all, just for one night, with no strings attached.
I get it. But then again, I also just want to stay home and make cookies. Is that weird? The dressing up, the becoming someone other than myself, all feels so effortful. And, though I haven’t fully summited the mountain of radical self-acceptance, I do love a cozy night in—as myself—almost (ok, fine, maybe more) than a wild night out.
What are you doing for Halloween? What’s your dress-up m.o.? Let me learn from your ways. Did I mention I’ll be here making cookies?
Truth be told, I’ve been dreaming about these cookies all year—from the time we started planning for National Chocolate Day. They’re deeply, deeply chocolatey, featuring a trifecta of chocolate in all forms of glory: Raw, unprocessed cacao nibs, rich and sultry unsweetened cocoa powder, and creamy and luscious semisweet chocolate chunks. Scharffen Berger’s chocolate lets each varietal sing in its unique form—I’m particularly partial to the gentle crunch and lift their smaller sized cacao nibs provide in this cookie.
Did I mention that the recipe is entirely vegan and refined sugar free? It’s crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and filled with the exotic spice of cinnamon, cayenne, and smoked paprika. I was first inspired to make these by the infamous Gjelina pumpkin seed chocolate chunk cookies, and got pumped to make them vegan after I baked up my friend Sarah’s incredible vegan brownie pie.
Ready for your chocolate cookie dreams to come true? Make them yourself, and don’t forget to share on social media, tagging @kaleandcaramel and @scharffenberger. Be sure to check out ScharffenBerger.com, where you can find a wide variety of baking chocolate as well as chocolate bars.
TRIPLE MEXICAN CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES (VEGAN).
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons flax meal
- 6 tablespoons water
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¾ cup coconut oil
- 1 1/3 cup coconut sugar
- 1 cup Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon kosher sea salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika plus more for garnish
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup Scharffen Berger 62% Semisweet Chunks coarsely chopped, recommend 60% to 70% cacao chocolate
- ¼ cup Scharffen Berger Cacao Nibs
cookie toppings
- ½ cup Scharffen Berger 62% Semisweet Chunks
- 1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika plus more for garnish
- 3 tablespoons toasted pepitas pumpkin seeds
- 3 tablespoons Scharffen Berger Cacao Nibs
- 2 teaspoons flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325ºF and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together the flax meal and water in a small bowl to make your flax “egg”, and set aside.
- In a sauce pan over low heat, whisk together the maple syrup, coconut oil, and coconut sugar. Continue whisking until the sugar melts and the mixture becomes smooth, about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl, and whisk another minute to integrate the coconut oil. Whisk in the flax “egg” mixture, the cocoa powder, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon, cayenne, and smoked paprika, just until smooth. Switch to a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, and mix in the all-purpose flour. Stir in the chopped chocolate chunks and cacao nibs.
- Cover mixture with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Once chilled, remove from fridge and scoop cookies out in 2-3 tablespoon scoops and flatten to ½" disks. Bake for 18 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.
- While cooling, melt ½ cup chocolate chunks in a double boiler or microwave and mix in 1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika. In a small bowl, mix together the pepitas, cacao nibs, and flaky sea salt. Once cookies are cool, drizzle with melted chocolate, sprinkle with the pepita and cacao mix, and finish with a pinch of smoked paprika.
- Serve immediately, then store in an airtight container for up to a few days.
