CurrentMom: Mama Needs Some Sugar: Saucepan Fudge Drops Recipe

Meal Monday

Like most moms, I spend my days meeting the needs of others. But I have needs, too.

Not the yoga classes, long phone calls with friends, and bikini waxes that I "needed" before children. What I need these days is something to get me going early in the morning. Just because the kids sleep 12 hours each night doesn't mean that mommy is ready for the 6:30am wake-up call.

So what do I need exactly? Coffee, of course. My husband makes it just the way I need it: strong, with a hint of cardamom or cinnamon. But coffee alone isn't always enough to kick-start me in the morning. I need a one-two punch: caffeine and sugar.

I don't eat breakfast until the trips go down for their morning nap, so I need a little snack—a jolt of sugar—to get me through the first two hours of the day. And I'm rather particular about what kind of snikkety-snack will do the job.

First of all, I'm a dunker. A cookie, biscotti, even a bar cookie will do. Secondly, I'm a snob when it comes to baked goods. I'm a baker. So a package of Chips Ahoy is like a can of spam to a steak connoisseur.

Since I can't bring myself to buy mass-produced baked goods, it's up to me to bake a dunkable, delicious, homemade sugary treat. But where do I find the time? When I can steal a few minutes, I know it's better spent doing laundry or dishes, grocery shopping, or cleaning the house. It's hard to justify baking. Even though I really, really need that cookie.

Of course, as a life-long baker, I have a couple of quick, easy, go-to recipes just for this purpose. But lately I've been getting bored with them. I had to try something new (a compulsion, not a need).

Deciding that the babes could go one more night on the same crib sheets, I perused a couple of my favorite baking blogs for inspiration. Staying up way too late one night, I stumbled upon a new go-to recipe.

It's dunkable. It's chocolate, which goes great with coffee. It's pretty healthy, as far as cookies go, with less than a stick of butter, cocoa powder, and yogurt. But what makes this cookie a go-to recipe is that it's really easy—both method (no creaming butter and sugar here) and clean-up (one bowl, a saucepan, and parchment paper-covered cookie sheets).

It's one thing to fall in love with a recipe. It's another for it to deliver a perfectly chewy cookie with a richer chocolate flavor than you imagined. I'm almost excited to get out of bed tomorrow.

Saucepan Fudge Drops Recipe:
Source: I saw this on Carmen Cooks (who saw it on Food Librarian, who saw it on Tracey’s Culinary Adventures, who saw it on Blue Ridge Baker—they're that good!). The recipe is adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.

Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
1/3 cup yogurt (I used lowfat vanilla)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (if using plain yogurt, use 1 tsp)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350, with racks in the upper and lower thirds of your oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl, and set aside.

Place butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and sizzling. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa until smooth. Add sugars and stir until blended. The mixture will be stiff and sandy at this point. Stir in yogurt and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined.

Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake until cookies look dry on top and are cracked all over, but are still slightly soft when pressed, 10-12 minutes. Rotate baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back about half way through to ensure even baking. Slide the parchment, cookies and all, onto racks to cool.

Yield: 24 cookies

Notes:

As Tracey notes, you need to work quickly to get all of the ingredients combined and the dough onto the baking sheets. If the dough cools before you put the cookies into the oven, they won't be as thin. I worked too slowly, so my cookies are thick—but still chewy and yummy.

I got 31 cookies, but I made mine on the small side. I think two cookies in the morning are much more satisfying than one.