Chewy chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips

My friend L's 30th birthday is tomorrow!  We've planned a big 30th birthday bash for her this coming weekend, but tomorrow she's planning to get a few of us together to watch a movie in Bryant Park (weather dependent, of course, considering the 10-day forecast in New York City is showing 10 days of rain).  I was going to bring cupcakes, but decided against it for a few reasons....first of all, tomorrow is my first day back at work after vacation, and the idea of schlepping 12 or 24 full sized cupcakes to Brooklyn to work and then back into Manhattan with me seemed daunting.  Plus, I just made two different varieties of mini cupcakes for my birthday party last night.  And that 30th birthday bash that I mentioned?  Yeah, I'm baking for that, too (keep your eyes peeled over the next week and a half for all those posts).

So cookies seemed like a good idea.  Tasty, portable, and no garbage related to them (like cupcake wrappers), which seemed nice for the park.  I had two options of types of cookies that I was going to make.  These chewy chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and a double chocolate variety.  Originally I was going to make them both, but decided that they were kinda redundant....chocolate cookies with chocolate chips, just different kinds of chips.  I chose the white chocolate chip onces since they (a) used dark chocolate cocoa powder (well the both did, but I love dark chocolate), and (b) I liked the contrast of the white chocolate chips in the super rich dark chocolate cookie.

I decided to make cookies on the smaller size.  I made 48.  There's now about enough cookie dough to make AT LEAST another 48 in my freezer.  Great for a rainy day (or a surprise event).

Chewy Chocolate Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder)

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease cookie sheet (or line with parchment paper).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well with each addiction.
Add the salt and vanilla.

In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa and baking soda.
Gradually add to the creamed mixture (I just dumped it all in....oops!)
Fold in chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet.  I used my mini scooper to make smaller cookies - they came out about the size of an Entemann's cookie - remember those?  Such fond memories....but I digress - but a bit thicker.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until fluffy but still soft.  My smaller cookies baked for about 6 minutes.

Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.