My Chocolate Season: Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies

Falling in love with this recipe was easy for me. It incorporates olive oil and I've been selling 'the good stuff' at a locally owned store for 15 years. Some of its sweetness comes from honey and I love opportunities to use minimally processed ingredients.

VOE: The chilled dough was easy to work with and my organic sugar - which has bigger crystals than more highly processed sugar does  - was the perfect stand-in for turbinado or sanding sugar. 

VOE: I never have owned a sifter, but my trusty old sieve worked great to minimize cocoa granules. 

Above: I do love the color of yolks from free range eggs! And adding the blended dry ingredients to the egg/sugar/honey/vanilla mixture was a breeze when using a large spoon. 

VOE: I cooled the fully combined dough for about an hour and was very pleased with how easily it transformed into small chocolatey balls. I also learned my silicone baking mats work as well as parchment paper does, reducing trash from making these cookies. 

However, the size of my balls turned out larger than the recipe suggested, yielding about 32 servings versus the anticipated 54 servings. Yet the ones I crafted turned into wonderful cookies just the same - full of delicious chocolate flavor and a sweetness that wasn't the least bit overpowering. I will definitely make this recipe again.