Saucepan Fudge Drops

(picture taken from Tracey's Culinary Adventures)

I saw this recipe on Tracey's Culinary Adventures several days ago. They looked absolutely delicious and seemed so quick and easy to make. Little mounds of fudgy goodness. I knew I had to make them. And make them I did this morning. The only substitution I made was using fat-free sour cream instead of yogurt. I ended up scaling back the recipe to four-fifths. Now, why would I do such a ridiculous thing? Because I found that I only had 8 tablespoons of cocoa powder instead of ten. Well, I wasn't going to let a little thing like that deter me from making this recipe. So, using my awesome math skills, I re-calculated the amounts. Okay, fine, maybe they weren't so awesome after all because I ended up adding the full cup of flour instead of the scaled-back amount. Oh well, to err is human. Lucky for me, that didn't seem to affect the cookies any. In fact, eating the dough alone (totally fine since there's no eggs in this recipe) was heavenly, but *sigh* they DID have to be baked. The result was everything I could have hoped for. They were chocolatey, they were chewy, they were perfect. I'm already contemplating playing around with this recipe in the future - perhaps a white chocolate peanut butter drizzle to finish them off, or adding cinnamon or chipotle chili powder to the mix, or even rolling them in a combination of sugar and chai spices. I can just see it now. Ohhh, yes, this is a go-to recipe from now on.

Saucepan Fudge Drops
(from Tracey's Culinary Adventures as adapted from Bittersweet by Alice Mendrich)

1 c. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 c. + 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. yogurt or sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once melted and sizzling, remove from heat and whisk in cocoa until smooth (it will look like a chocolate paste). Add both sugars and stir until blended - the mixture will be stiff and sandy at this point. Add the yogurt/sour cream and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined. Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet. Bake until the cookies look dry on top and are cracked all over, but are still slightly soft when pressed, about 10-12 min.