It’s that time of the work month again.  It’s my week of meetings.  Today and tomorrow, I’m having lunch with coworkers.  I should be back with a bento on Thursday.  In the meantime, please enjoy these Chocolate Stacked Cookies.

For this recipe you’ll need: cookie dough, little rectangles of chocolate (Hershey’s bars would work great),  an egg white or two (depending on how many cookies you plan to make), and chopped nuts.

Ever have an idea that pops in your head and you just HAVE to make it to see how it would work.  That is what happened to me with these cookies.  I’m a chocolate fiend.  I’m a sweets lover.  If I could, I’d bake cakes and pies and cookies all the time.  Mainly, I don’t because it’s just me.  I don’t need that many sweets in the house.  Even before I started this “let’s teach myself to cook” journey, I baked.  I’ve always done pretty decently at it.  Not stupendous, but compared to my cooking it was usually edible and tasty.

Having a big sweet tooth, especially one for chocolate, I’ve also gotten into the habit of looking at chocolate alot.  I’ve tried a fair amount of chocolate too.  And I’m always intrigued by the multitudes of chocolate I haven’t tried yet.  Take Sharffen Berger chocolate for instance.  I see it in all sorts of specialty stores but haven’t been willing to pay the price for it.  I never did understand why it costs what it does.  In the grocery the other day, I was shopping and ran across it again.  After reading Feisty Foodie’s recent post about an Sharffen Berger press event, I came really, really close to purchasing a bag.  I wanted a cookie with chocolate in it something fierce.  Then in a flash of inspiration, I thought of some chocolate I already had at home.

These are delicious for their $2.99 box price.  Just as soon as I thought of them, the cookie above flashed in my head.  An experiment was born.  If you want to make these cookies, just find a bit of flat chocolate.  A thin Hershey’s chocolate bar will do as well.

I made a really simple cookie dough.  It’s basically a type of butter cookie.  A sugar cookie dough would work as well.  Heck, if you have a roll of cookie dough from the supermarket, use that.  Press it into a flat ovalish type shape.  Wrap it in a bit of plastic food wrap, and place it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.  You want to firm it up.

Once chilled, make slices of your cookie dough.  You’ll have these long oval sort of things.  Cut them a wee bit thicker than this.  Some of the ones I cut were a wee bit too small.

Press down on the slice with you finger to flatten and widen it a bit.

Now pretend this piece of chocolate is on a little slice.  At first, I was rolling out the dough.  I quickly realized that was a bit silly when the dough was practically the shape I needed.  Place your piece of chocolate on the slice.

Using a butter knife or cheese spreader (which is what that is up there), cut away the excess.   Place excess cookie dough to the side underneath a towel.

Lift up your dough slice/chocolate and flip it over onto the other dough slice.  Cut away the excess.

If you are so inclined and not allergic, you can top your cookies with some well chopped nuts.  I used walnuts.  Pecans would be a delight as well.

Brush the top of your cookie with a bit of egg white and then sprinkle on the chopped nuts.

Look how beautiful!  It’s time to get them ready for baking.  Line them all up on a cookie sheet and bake according to the instructions for the type of cookie dough you are using.  My cookies baked at 375 for 8 minutes or until slightly browned on top.

Once finished baking, take them out and admire them.

Aren’t they cute?

Though a few had a slight problem.  Some dough slices I cut fairly thinly to see how it would work out.  When the chocolate melted a bit in the oven, it caused these cookies to crumble a bit.  However, once cooled, they held together well.

Those that were cut a bit thicker worked better.  They looked mroe like I wanted them to look: a stacked cookie.

Have a great Tuesday and Wednesday everyone.  Be the bento!  See you Thursday.