In this video, Chef John brings you his wickedly delicious “Black Magic” Chocolate Chip Cookies, perfect for Halloween! Made with rich brown sugar and a surprising twist—activated charcoal—these cookies are as dark and mysterious as they are sweet and irresistible.
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00:00Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with Black Magic Chocolate Chip Cookies.
00:09That's right, we're using activated charcoal to give our award-winning chocolate chips
00:13a dark and demonic twist.
00:16And besides looking evil, some say it possesses magical healing powers, since it is given
00:21to people to absorb toxins.
00:23So besides the great taste and look, you may want to make these in case you think someone
00:27might be trying to poison you.
00:29And to get started, let's check out the star of the show, some activated charcoal powder,
00:34which can be made from different things, but most like this one are made from coconut.
00:39And it might not look like it, but this stuff is completely flavorless.
00:44So if you were concerned about that, don't be.
00:46This does not taste like burning.
00:49But before we get to the Black Magic portion of the program, we've got a couple things
00:52to do.
00:53The first of which would be to add a touch of white sugar to a couple sticks of unsalted
00:57butter, and then we will also want to add some light brown sugar, and no, it did not
01:01want to come out of that bowl.
01:03It was almost as if there was a spell cast on it.
01:06But eventually the spell was broken, at which point I grabbed my electric mixer and proceeded
01:11to cream the sugar and butter together, which started out kind of slow and annoyingly, since
01:16for once I did remember to leave my butter out, and it was fairly soft.
01:20But soft butter does not always mean cooperative butter.
01:24And I had one stick that wanted to go inside the beaters, and another stick that was trying
01:28to avoid being mixed in, so I had to stop and start a few times to reposition things.
01:33But the good news is, after a few moments, it all came together.
01:38And once it does, we really don't need to cream this super light and fluffy.
01:40Right as soon as it looks something like this, we can stop and add the next set of ingredients,
01:46which will include one large egg, plus a generous spoon of our activated charcoal.
01:52And once that's been black magicked, we can toss in a splash of pure real vanilla extract,
01:57as well as a couple of tablespoons of milk, and then we'll follow that with a little bit
02:01of salt, as well as some baking soda.
02:05No not baking powder, baking soda.
02:08And once all that's in there, we'll take our mixer, or a whisk if you want, and we will
02:13mix this until everything's evenly combined.
02:15And as you'll see, it does not take very long for this mixture to get very dark and very
02:20sinister looking, which of course is the whole idea.
02:24And as you'll see in the recipe, I'm using four teaspoons of the activated charcoal,
02:27which is a lot, because I want these Halloween themed cookies to be very black.
02:32But you can use less, and I did a test batch with just two teaspoons, which came out more
02:36like a very dark grey charcoal color.
02:38And while they did not come out really black like these, they were still pretty disturbing
02:43looking.
02:44But anyway, no matter how much you use, once we have that all mixed together, we will stop,
02:48and we will transfer in our flour, and then switch to a spatula to mix it in.
02:53And you probably could use your mixer on low speed to do this, but old habits die hard.
02:58And I was always taught to mix flour into things like this by hand, so you have a little
03:02more control and feel, and you don't over mix.
03:05Although for a cookie dough, that's really not usually a big deal.
03:08But anyway, no matter what you use, once that flour just about all disappears, we will stop
03:13and blend in the last ingredient, which is a whole bunch of dark chocolate chips.
03:18And if you're keeping score at home, I'm using a 70% cacao.
03:22Since I think the ultimate chocolate chip is made with bittersweet chocolate, well,
03:26you go ahead and use whatever you want.
03:29And no matter what chips you choose, we want to make sure we mix those in nice and evenly.
03:34Because is there any sadder sight, than a chocolate chip cookie that only has a couple
03:37chips in it, and it's sitting right next to one with a whole bunch of chips?
03:41Alright, that is not a good look.
03:44So let's mix those in uniformly, so every cookie has about the same number of chips.
03:49And that's it.
03:50If you have to make cookies right now, you can.
03:52But for pretty much every cookie dough, I prefer to wrap it up and chill it in the fridge
03:56for at least an hour, so it's nice and cold and firm and easy to work with when we pull
04:00it out.
04:01So that's exactly what I did.
04:04And after about an hour in the fridge, our devilishly dark dough was ready to go.
04:09So I grabbed my trusty sorbet scoop, and I started transferring nice equal portions
04:13onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
04:16And this disher, as it's called in the business, fits just over a tablespoon of dough.
04:21So if you don't have one, you can just use a tablespoon.
04:24Which works fine, it's just not as quick.
04:27But anyway, you decide.
04:28I mean, you are, after all, the dark master of doing these a little bit faster.
04:33But no matter what method you use, we don't want to crowd these cookies on the pan.
04:37Which is why we're using our famous 2-1-2-1-2 alignment, which is going to give us 8 cookies
04:43per pan.
04:45And that's it, once portioned, this is now ready to go into the center of a 375 degree
04:50oven for about 12 to 13 minutes.
04:54Or until they look like this.
04:55Oh yeah, those are going to turn some heads.
04:59Like maybe all the way around.
05:00Yes, just like it did to that girl in that movie.
05:04Oh and speaking of nightmares, we need to let these cool down a little bit before we
05:07try to eat them.
05:09And personally, I let them cool down all the way to room temp before I serve them, which
05:12we can do right on the pan.
05:14But I'm going to transfer them onto a cooling rack, so I can reuse that pan and paper to
05:19bake some more.
05:21And by the way, this recipe is going to make about 32, give or take.
05:24So I went ahead and did a few more batches, until my cooling rack was filled to capacity
05:29and I was able to take my contractually obligated pictures.
05:33And no, I'll not be making any Faustian bargain jokes, although I kind of want to.
05:38But anyway, once those cooled down, I went ahead and grabbed one and went in for the
05:41official taste, and that my friends, believe it or not, tastes exactly, exactly like our
05:47award winning chocolate chip cookies.
05:50Which is very odd, since you're biting into something that's black and sort of looks burnt,
05:55and yet the flavor is identical to the classic chocolate chip.
05:58So why bother with the charcoal?
06:00The obvious answer is that serving black cookies on Halloween would be a pretty cool
06:04thing to do, and will probably impress the kids.
06:08And I guess the other reason would be the supposed health benefits.
06:10That I'm going to let you do your own research on, and decide if that's a thing.
06:16But anyway, after finishing that one, I moved on to the cold milk test.
06:20Oh yeah, for any chocolate chip to be legit, you have to be able to dip it in cold milk.
06:25And I have to say this worked out quite nicely.
06:28And no, it didn't discolor the milk, which reminds me, in case you're wondering, it is
06:33not going to turn your teeth black, or at least any blacker than they already are.
06:37Oh, and I hope you're not just hearing this for the first time from me, but everything,
06:42and I mean everything, comes with a cost.
06:45And if you use the charcoal to get this amazing color, and possible health benefits, there's
06:49going to be a very tiny, very subtle, almost imperceivable, sort of grittiness between
06:54your teeth when you finish a bite.
06:57And in fact, gritty is not even a good way to describe it, since you can barely, barely
07:01feel it.
07:02But there is something there.
07:04And something is not nothing, so I did want to mention.
07:06Okay, you might not even have noticed it if I hadn't, but depending on what brand you
07:11use, and how finely it's ground, don't be shocked if you can sort of kind of tell there's
07:15something in there.
07:16But anyway, whether you make these for the possibly dubious health benefits, or you just
07:21think they look super cool to bring to a holiday party, no matter what reasons you have in
07:25the darkest recesses of your mind, this truly is an amazing chocolate chip cookie.
07:30And I really do hope you give this a try soon.
07:34So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
07:39more info as usual.
07:41And as always, enjoy!