Few things are better than a mug of steaming hot cocoa on a cold winter morning and I indulge whenever I can. I love trying new flavors of hot chocolate – though I love a classic dark chocolate drink – for variety, including Biscoff Hot Chocolate, Hot Cocoa Cappuccinos and Gingerbread Hot Chocolate. Beverages aside, I don’t usually see too many hot cocoa flavored products because the flavors of hot cocoa, which include bittsweet cocoa and milk, are hard to capture in a baked good without simply turning into a regular chocolate dessert. This year, Nabisco gave it a shot and released some limited edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy.
The soft-baked cookies are filled with a hot cocoa filling and include both small marshmallows and chocolate chips in the cookie dough. What makes them unusual is the fact that the packaging recommends microwaving the cookies to turn that filling into a molten center before serving, capturing the warmth of a mug of hot cocoa.
On their own, the cookies have a fudgy flavor that is like that of a very tender and cake-like brownie. The filling has a nice chocolate flavor and is less sweet than buttercream, though it is not unlike it when it comes to its texture. They’re pretty good with a glass of milk or a mug of hot cocoa, but the cookies were a lot more interesting once they were warmed up. The bittersweet notes of the cocoa came through more in the warmed cookie and the molten filling actually did remind me of hot cocoa. I found it difficult to get quite the right cooking time (my microwave needed longer than the packaging recommended), so I had to play around with a few before nailing it down. I would have liked a few more marshmallows in the cookies – or for the marshmallows to be a bit more prominent – but these were fun to eat and a great effort and transforming one of my favorite cold-weather drinks into a tasty treat.
What do you think?