Chef Dennis Littley demonstrates how to make his signature Chocolate Decadence cookies, famously called “Oh My God” cookies for their intense flavor. He starts by melting 8 oz of high‑quality bittersweet chocolate with 2 Tbsp butter, using either a double boiler or an induction cooker. He then gently heats eggs, sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla until lukewarm, avoiding scrambled eggs, and mixes this into the chocolate to form a smooth batter. A quarter‑cup of flour (with ¼ tsp baking powder and ⅛ tsp salt) is folded in, followed by 2 cups (≈12 oz) chopped pecans (or walnuts) and a doubled amount of bittersweet chocolate chips. The batter is portioned with a #30 scoop (or 2 Tbsp), optionally flattened, and baked on parchment for 12–14 minutes until the edges are crisp and the centers remain gooey. Dennis emphasizes visual cues (skin formation, color change) over appearance, and advises a 20‑minute cooling on a wire rack. He notes the recipe’s origin from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet cookbook, his only adjustment being the extra chips. Finally, he shares packaging tips for gifting—tight containers, shipping nationwide, and positioning the cookies as a Valentine’s Day treat. Throughout, Dennis offers practical equipment tips, cost‑effective induction cooker insights, and encouragement to trust the process.
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Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and today you're here with me as I prepare my chocolate decadence cookies. And one of the places I worked at, they were referred to as "Oh my God" cookies because that was the reaction you got every time you ate one. So I promise you, if you make these cookies, they're going to go over better than you could have imagined. So we're going to start pretty simply. It's not a difficult recipe. There's just a couple steps to it. That make it maybe a little daunting, but they're really not hard at all. The first step is just really melting chocolate. I started that ahead of time just so we wouldn't stay too far behind. It's melting chocolate with 2 tablespoons of butter. So you have 8 ounces of the best chocolate you can get, a nice bittersweet chocolate. You don't want it to be milk chocolate. It won't quite have that, that mmm that dark chocolate has to it. So you want to get a nice bittersweet chocolate. And melt it down, cut it up into small pieces, add 2 tablespoons of butter. And you can see I just have a pan with some water in it. And normally I use like a double boiler, but I wanted to try out my new induction cooker and I don't have a pan that this fits in, so I'm gonna do it this way. So once I've melted the chocolate with the butter in it, I'm just gonna set it aside. All right? We're actually gonna put it right here so it doesn't— get too hot. All right, now my next step is I'm going to whip some eggs with some sugar, a little bit of vanilla, about a teaspoon. All right, now this is going over the heat too, so the only thing you have to be careful with here is not to end up making scrambled eggs, which really wouldn't be too good in a chocolate cookie. So what I want to do is I want to get the eggs about lukewarm. They don't have to be too, too hot. I want all the sugar to dissolve, and I want to temper them a little bit so when I mix this into the chocolate, I don't get a bad reaction. So I'm just going to kind of keep this in the pan a little bit and whip them as I go. I'm not really looking for extra volume, but if I get a little, you know, it's not too bad. Just want to dissolve all that sugar. This induction cooker does heat pretty quick. I was surprised. I had it set pretty low. This is probably the worst step of the whole thing. Once you get by this, you're home. Almost. Keep it moving so we don't cook them too much. All right, that's about— yep, it's just a little bit more than lukewarm, so we're good to go. See how quick that was? If you do it on the stove top, might take a little longer, not too much. All right, so I'm going to get rid of this. This is off. Unplug it. We're just going to move it out of the way. Well, I remember in the old days When I first started in executive dining, we had induction cookers and they were $2,000 apiece. That was just crazy. This one was under $100 at Amazon, so it's really not a bad investment. So I've got my chocolate and it's cooled down a little bit. I've got my eggs and sugar, so I'm just going to mix the two together. We're not really folding them, we're just gonna get them mixed in pretty good. Get them nice and incorporated, get all the egg incorporated in the chocolate, make a nice smooth batter. If there were any pieces of chocolate that weren't quite melted, That should pretty much help you finish it. Okay, so now we have our mixture here. So now we're going to add in a little bit of flour that it does get, and this recipe only gets a quarter cup of flour. And although I've never tried it, I'm sure this would be an easy way to do a gluten-free flour because it takes so very little. So a quarter cup of flour, and we're just going to mix that in. Now, after you get this down, you might want to double the batch because these cookies really are good. And as good as they are, you're going to want to give them away too because you want to see the reactions of your friends when they eat them. Okay, so that flour is mixed in. All right, now we're almost done. I'm going to mix in 2 more things. I've got 2 cups of chopped pecans. You can use walnuts if you like. I have 2 cups, or 12 ounces weight, of chocolate chips. These are bittersweet chocolate chips. I'm just going to fold all this together.
I almost think I'd eat that bowl without cooking them.
I'm telling you, these are really, really good. But they come out so well when they're cooked. And I didn't mention too that in that flour mixture, I had a quarter teaspoon of baking powder, and I had an eighth of a teaspoon of salt already mixed into that. So if you check the recipe, it will be in there. I know you can smell the chocolate all throughout the house right now too. It's been doubly bad because this is the second batch I've made today. I did pass some across to the neighbor. And that's all there is to it. It almost looks like you have a little bit of a fudge or very thick batter. So once you're up to that point— I made a little mess here. Okay. Very simple. I forgot to turn the oven on. That's okay. We have our cookie sheet with some parchment on it. And then I have a number 30 scoop. You could just use 2 tablespoons. This just works for me. I'm a chef. I'm used to using these kind of tools, so I have them at home. People are always amazed, but when you start working with things on a regular basis, you want to have them around you all the time. And these are going to look like you can't believe they're actually going to come out. But trust me, they are. I, I, first few times I made these, I was second-guessing myself and I put more flour in and it just made a mess. They weren't good. Then I trusted the recipe. And actually the recipe is from Alice Medric from her Bittersweet cookbook. And the only adjustment I did was at the end, I doubled the amount of chocolate chips. And that has seemed to work really well.
And it doesn't stick at all on there, huh?
No.
It's amazing.
I'm telling you, the first time you do it, you just got to trust because you're wondering that this could not come out. It's really as simple as it was. You saw how fast. Of course, I melted the chocolate ahead of time. I mean, that was a simple step. Okay, the only other thing I do a little is I just like to flatten them out just a little bit. You don't really have to, but I just like to make the cookie look more like a cookie than just a mound. You can see as the chocolate starts to stiffen up a little too, you know, you really don't have much mess from them. It's the egg and that little bit of flour that really is what turns them into a cookie. So that's all there is to it, and then you're going to pop them in the oven for like 12 to 14 minutes, and that's where you have to be careful. Because when they're in the oven, they're not necessarily going to look like they're done to you. You have to be— you have to just again trust. And you're going to come out with some cookies. They're light. They're a little dense and light at the same time. I know it's like an oxymoron, but they are. The inside's going to be a little gooey. The outside's going to be crisp. Now, if you let them go too long and you get this outside too hard because you think it just can't be done, the inside won't be as soft and gooey as they should be. And they really won't make your eyes roll back into the back of your head when you take a bite of them. So you want to really get this texture right. So 12 to 14 minutes depending on your oven. But you just want this outside to have a little bit of crispness to it. Okay, and you'll see when you're cooking, it'll still seem like it's soft to you.. But once this gets that coloration, the different coloration in it, and it looks like it's got a bit of a skin on it, then it's done. Okay? Just take them out, put them on a wire rack, let them cool for a good 20 minutes before you touch them, if you have that much willpower, and they'll be set up really nice. And these hold up really well too. Whenever I do cookies to send out, this is generally what I make. And I pack them up nice and tight in a container, and I've mailed them all across the country, and they've— I've got grapes on them when I send them. So that's my chocolate decadence cookie. It's a great Valentine's Day treat or a cookie anytime you want to get somebody to say they love you or remind them that you love them. So this is Chef Dennis Littley, and Claudia, thanks a lot for joining me today. I appreciate you taking the time to come out.
Oh, I enjoyed this. I love those cookies. They look great. I can't wait to try them.
Well, I'll be happy to hear how they came out for you.
Whoops!
All right, well, I'm gonna sign off. That's Chef Dennis Littley, and thank you very much for coming. Have a great day.
