A Taste of Chocolate Luxury

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Martha Stewart's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies

Do not bake the cookies to a crisp; they are meant to be soft and chewy. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature for two to three days.

Prep: 20 minutes
Total: 45 minutes

Ingredients

Makes 2 dozen

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat chopped chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl in 20-second increments, stirring in between, until almost melted; do not overheat. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
3. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

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"Pure Hershey's"

Hershey this week began airing a TV spot that marks the beginning of its "Pure Hershey's" campaign, which hopes to associate the candy maker's chocolate with feelings of happiness, innocence and simplicity.

The spots for Hershey's Chocolate Bar eventually will become an umbrella campaign for the company's other top brands, targeting a demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds. The first 30- and 15-second ads, via Arnold NYC, will run next quarter and into 2009—all aiming to connect Hershey's chocolate with various pleasant emotions.

The current spot is the work of Wallace & Gromit creators Aardman Animations. It takes viewers inside a Hershey's candy bar that melts into an animated scene of a girl on a swing, which morphs into another scene showing the girl and her boyfriend driving in a chocolate convertible. Chocolate bunnies chase the couple as they ride into the sunset and "I Melt With You" by Modern English provides background music. A female voiceover asks: "What Makes a Hershey's bar pure?" She then answers: "pure simplicity," "pure happiness," "pure delicious."

"The snacking universe has gotten so much bigger and varied and the thing about a Hershey's bar is if you try to line up the attributes on a rational level—ingredients to ingredients—you're going to come up short unless we can make something out of that," said John Staffen, Arnold NYC's chief creative officer. "The emotional ingredients that go into a Hershey's bar are what the campaign tries to play up."

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