Dark Chocolate Tiger Cookies

I love chocolate, you all know this about me.

This is a tale of 2 cocoas. I usually don't worry about fancy ingredients when I'm baking. I can't get them unless I want to go online and order them anyway. Hershey's cocoa has always been a staple in my house, even as a kid.
When Hershey's came out with their Special Dark Cocoa, I was in love. A much deeper flavor. But it didn't work for everything. A few things I baked looked almost black. Yes the taste was there, wonderful but if it doesn't look appealing to eat then, well, who wants to eat it. So I always have both regular and the special dark cocoas in my cabinet.

This is one recipe that calls for the Special Dark. I tested, a few times, just to be sure. Just look at the dough, If this was frosting, we'd all be dipping our spoons into the fudgy one on the right. Once baked up, you can still see a difference. 

The true difference is in the taste of these cookies. The regular cocoa produces a chocolate cookie but nothing special. The Special Dark cookies make you close your eyes and savor the deep, dark chocolate, almost like a rich brownie. And my daughter sold these cookies as part of her bake sale so it's not just my opinion, everyone agreed, The Dark Chocolate cookies were better.

Dark Chocolate Tiger Cookies
from Hershey's Incredibly Easy Recipes

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 to 1 cup powdered sugar

Blend together sugar and oil in a large mixing bowl, add in cocoa and mix again. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, blend flour, baking powder and salt then add to chocolate mixture. Make sure to mix well and scrap down sides of your bowl. Your dough will be a consistency between a cake batter and a brownie batter. Refrigerate dough for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place powdered sugar in small bowl. Spoon dough into a ball about 1 inch in size (about the size of a small walnut.) Place dough into powdered sugar and roll around to coat (dough will be sticky.) Place balls on greased cookies sheet about 2 inches apart.

Bake 11-13 minutes until tops are cracked  and cookies are firm. Let rest on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to racks to cool completely.

I'm linking up at a few of these great parties.