Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Here in Chicago, there's snow everywhere right now.  Our dog, Windy, is having an absolute blast playing fetch out in the snow!  In fact, when I opened the door to our deck so that I could take this picture outside in the sunlight, Windy immediately ran out and rolled all around in the 5 inches of snow that has accumulated out there.

Even though Windy is loving this, I didn't want to go out and run a bunch of errands until the roads get cleaned up a little more so I decided I would bake cookies this afternoon.  I decided to make these chocolate crinkle cookies, and they turned out really fudgy, sugary, and delicious.  I used this recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I actually used 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup melted butter)
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours (or you can also stick in the freezer for about 45 minutes).

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into one inch balls. Coat each ball in confectioners' sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets (this dough is pretty sticky so I found that the easiest way to do this was to scoop the amount of dough you want with a spoon and drop it into the powdered sugar without touching it.  Then, it's much easier to roll into a ball since it's coated with the powdered sugar).

3. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to wire racks to cool.