Chocolate Aggies

• 1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and set aside.

  2. In a heavy 3-quart to 4-quart saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and the chocolate. Stir occasionally until smooth, then remove from heat.

  3. With a heavy wooden spatula, stir the sugar into the warm chocolate mixture. Stir in the eggs, one at a time.

  4. Add the sifted dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Stir in the nuts.

  5. It will be a soft dough and it must be refrigerated, either in the same pan or in a bowl.Cover and refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours (can be refrigerated longer or overnight if you wish).

  6. Preheat oven to 300^o.

  7. Cut aluminum foil to fit cookie sheets.

  8. Press the confectioners sugar through a strainer and spread it out on a pie plate or large piece of wax paper. Sugar the palms of your hands with confectioners sugar.

  9. Roll the dough into 1 to 1 1/4-inch balls, using a heaping teaspoonful of dough for each cookie, then roll the balls in confectioners sugar to coat. (If the dough was refrigerated overnight and the cookies aren't baked immediately after being rolled in the confectioners sugar, the confectioners sugar will become wet. If this happens, the cookies should be rolled in the sugar again and then rolled between your hands again... so the confectioners sugar coats them heavily).

  10. Place them 2 inches apart on the foil, slide cookie sheets under the foil.

  11. Bake the cookies for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops of the cookies are barely semi-firm to the touch. Do not over bake (they should be slightly soft in the centers). Slide the foil off the cookie sheets and transfer the cookies to racks to cool with a wide metal spatula.

Note: Adjust 2 racks to divide the oven into thirds. If you bake only one sheet at a time, bake it high in the oven. If you bake two sheets at a time, reverse the position of the sheets top to bottom and front to back once during baking (to ensure even baking).