Mocha Cookies

Somehow I never tire of trying ultra chocolate cookies. What's weird about that fact--as well as my penchant for trying new peanut butter cookies, new shortbread, new chocolate chips cookies, new bundt cakes, etc--is that in general I am a creature of habit. I order the same salad and spring roll at my favorite Thai restaurant, I order the same 2 dishes (I take turns) at our local Indian restaurant; I eat the same bowl of cereal every weekday morning for breakfast. Yet no matter how much I might have a favorite dessert recipe, I seem compelled to try new ones.

Go figure.


Anyway, these are excellent. I rank them a notch below my favorite comparable (using chocolate and eggs with little flour, unlike say the Salty Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies, which use a lot of flour and cocoa powder) cookie, Lisa Yockelson's Savannahs, but they are excellent nonetheless and a bit different from those. Like the Savannahs, they have the added bonus--to me--of not having nuts. However, unlike the Savannahs, they are more delicate, more restrained, and maybe a little more elegant. They also have a much stronger mocha flavor--reduce the espresso powder to tone that down if you want.


Mocha Cookies
Closely adapted from Sara Moulton's Cooks At Home

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 oz dark chocolate chips (or chop more bittersweet chocolate but I am loving the 55% Guittard chips)
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, chopped
1/2 cup (63 g) AP flour
1/2 t baking powder
1 t fine sea salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 T espresso powder (original recipe called for 1 1/2 T, which is too much for me, 1 T will still allow you to taste mocha--so use to taste)
2 t vanilla

Melt the unsweetened chocolate the 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate along with the butter on 50% power in 30 second intervals in the microwave until you can whisk them smooth. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar on high power for 10 minutes, until thick and pale. Beat in the espresso powder and vanilla. Fold the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and then fold the flour mixture into it. Chill overnight (I actually froze for 60 minutes for the first batch and this worked fine).

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Scoop heaping tablespoons of the chilled dough onto a baking sheet--I got 12 to a sheet-- and bake for 8-10 minutes. Be certain to not overbake--they will be puffed and underdone when you remove them although they will collapse while cooling. Let cool on the baking sheet.