Makes 25 large cookies   Shortly after I finished work on my chocolate book, we were driving through central Florida and stopped for gas in the town of Cross Creek. I was delighted to see a little sign in the garage office that announced “Homemade Brownies 4 Sale.” The garage man told me his wife baked them fresh every day and the delivery for that day was expected in an hour. We paid for a dozen brownies and told him we would be back. After an hour of driving around in circles, we returned just as the brownies were being delivered. They were drop cookies, not bar cookies. They were unusually good, and certainly worth waiting for. When I asked for the recipe I was told that his wife would not part with it, but his mother-in-law had worked for Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and this had been Mrs. Rawlings’s recipe. I couldn’t wait to get home to see if it was in Cross Creek Cookery (Mrs. Rawlings’s cookbook). It was. The garage man’s wife had made a change (she added the chocolate morsels), and I added the coffee and omitted the baking powder.

They taste like brownies should: chewy, chocolatey, wonderful. Best of all, they are quick and easy to make, and keep well too.

Excerpted from HAPPINESS IS BAKING Copyright © 2019 by Maida Heatter. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York. All rights reserved.

Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut baking parchment to fit cookie sheets. Sift together the flour and salt and set aside.

In a small saucepan, dissolve the coffee in the water, add the chocolate, place over low heat, and stir with a rubber spatula until smooth; it will be a thick mixture. Set aside. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is soft. Add the vanilla and then the sugar and beat until mixed. Add the chocolate mixture (which may still be warm) and beat until smooth and thoroughly mixed. Then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. On low speed add the sifted dry ingredients, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula and beating only until mixed. Remove from the mixer.

Stir in the raisins, nuts, and chocolate morsels.

Use a heaping teaspoonful of the mixture for each cookie. Place them on the parchment, 2 inches apart; 8 cookies will fit on a 15½ x 12-inch sheet. Slide a cookie sheet under the parchment. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, reversing the sheets top to bottom and front to back once during baking to ensure even baking. (If you bake only one sheet at a time, bake on the higher rack.) The cookies are done if they just barely spring back (but just barely — do not overbake) when lightly pressed with a fingertip.

With a wide metal spatula, carefully transfer the cookies to rack to cool.

Store in an airtight container.