Chunky Chocolate Drop Cookies

We call these quadruple chocolate cookies. Catherine bought me a book all about cookies, and we've always just looked at the cookbook, like a picture book, but had never tried one. One day, a couple weeks ago, she talked me into making one of the recipes, and this was it. It's made me realize we need to try more recipes!

• 6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
• ½ cup unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 oz. white chocolate, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
• ½ cup milk chocolate, chopped into ¼-inch pieces
  
  Optional - 1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

DIRECTIONSPreheat oven to 325 degrees
Grease two large baking sheets.
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the semisweet chocolate chips and unsalted butter, stirring until smooth.Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly.

In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugars for 2-3 minutes, until pale and creamy.
Add vanilla extract.
Gradually pour in the melted chocolate mixture, beating until well blended.

Beat in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt until just blended.
Stir in chocolate chips, white and milk chocolate pieces, and nuts (if used).

Drop by the teaspoon (or tablespoon for larger cookies) on to the prepared baking sheets.
Bake 8-10 minutes, until the tops are shiny and cracked and the edges look crisp.
Do not overbake or the cookies will become fragile.

Remove the baking sheets to a wire rack to cool for 2 minutes, then transfer cookies to the rack to cool.

Variation:
We did not have white chocolate when we made these, so we added 2 more ounces of the milk chocolate pieces, and 2 more ounces of semisweet chocolate chips.
We didn't use the nuts...

We also added powdered sugar to the tops of the cookies. Incredibly delicious!