A few years ago, a friend of mine brought some spicy chocolate cookies to a party. They were delicious and rich like a traditional chocolate cookie but had such an unexpected kick from the different spices that I was officially smitten. I normally don’t gravitate towards spicy foods but these cookies really stood out for me and I’ve found myself remembering them fondly ever since.

I decided to try to recreate them and started off by looking up recipes for a spicy chocolate cookie. This recipe was a hit, but I wanted to see if I could mess around with the recipe a little bit to a) cut back on the butter, and b) to try to avoid having to melt the chocolate on the stove top. You know, for those days where you just need some cookies, STAT, and there just isn’t any time to waste. We’ve all been there.

So I made them a second time using this cookie recipe as a base and they came out great, but there was a little something missing. After a brief break from spicy cookies to give our taste buds time to regrow, I gave them one more shot the other night with the recipe below, and the extra crunch from the raw sugar was just what they needed. Justin agreed:

The cookies aren’t overwhelmingly spicy but they do have a kick to them, so if you’re an even bigger wimp than I am when it comes to spicy food, you can just cut back on the amount of chili powder and cayenne pepper to suit your tastes. Even if you just toss a little bit of each in there, it gives a traditional sweet chocolate chip cookie an unexpected edge that ends up working quite nicely.

Hot n’ Spicy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes: 24-30 cookies / prep time: 15 minutes / bake time: 9-11 minutes

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1 1/4 teaspoons chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup turbinado (raw) sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Whisk or sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, chili powder, and cayenne pepper in a medium bowl and set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, and instant coffee until the coffee is dissolved. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar for 2-3 minutes on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add in the egg mixture and beat until combined. Set the speed to low and slowly mix in the flour mixture. Hand-mix the chocolate chips into the dough. If the dough it too sticky to handle, cover and refrigerate for about 45 minutes. Working with a rounded tablespoon of dough at a time, roll and gently flatten the dough with your palms and press the top into the turbinado sugar to coat. Bake the cookie sheets one at a time for 9-11 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through. Leave the cookies on the sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.