Monday, November 23, 2009

Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Home Cooking



Last weekend my friend hosted a BBQ as part of our after-exam celebrations. We were asked to bring a plate of food and rather than picking up something from the shops, I thought I'd bake something. This was decided on a whim and I was at my parents house so I had to work with the ingredients available in the pantry.



I decided to bake cookies because they're easy to share at a party and I also happened to have chocolate chips etc all at hand.


Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes ~ 32

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup blanched, slivered almonds
  • 3 tbsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water (I substituted with 1 tbsp of coffee essence)
  • 1 and 1/3 cup all purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/3 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 pinch of salt
  • 1/4 cup of butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup and 1 tbsp of white sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Procedure:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Toast the almonds for around 5-10min or until just golden brown.2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.3. Cream together the butter and sugar.4. Add to the creamed butter the egg, coffee and vanilla extract.5. Slowly incorporate the powder into the butter and mixture, beating on a slow setting until combined.
6. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds into the mixture.
7. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper and use a teaspoon to put balls of cookie dough onto the paper about 5cm apart. Flatten slightly with the back of a fork.8. Bake for around 10min and cool completely on a rack before serving.


The cookies turned out a bit blander than I would have hoped - I think that is largely due to the fact that I used poor quality chocolate. You get what you pay for people! In baked goods that feature chocolate, the brand/quality of chocolate is of UTMOST importance. The other thing is... I didn't use freshly brewed Espresso or instant coffee power - rather, I substituted that with coffee essence so I think that might have altered the end flavor too. The texture is that crumbly kind with a slight chewiness in the center (this would also depend on exactly how long you bake them for).

Coffee and cookie

On their own, I thought the cookies were quite unremarkable but they went really well with a fresh cup of coffee. This was truly a case of compliment.

Bite shot

All in all, I suggest you use the best ingredients available to you and have a cup of coffee ready.

2 comments:

  1. Our new Acolyte might like these, he's taking over most of the chocolate-coffee combination testing for me.

    ReplyDelete