Buzz Buzz Buzz: Big Fat Chewy Cappuccino Cookies

After that long, rough winter we just had, this balmy spring weather has me feeling a bit like a butterfly that's just sprung free from its cocoon. A kinda-fluffy-around-the-middle, slightly-out-of-shape, not-particularly-graceful butterfly.

That probably explains why I signed up for a 5K run a few weeks back during an impulsive fit of must-get-back-into-shape-ness, because I must have been out of my mind. The race is at the end of this month. I've gone on exactly two training runs so far. Two.

Considering I normally wouldn't run more than a couple of blocks even if I was being chased by a horde of brain-hungry zombies, I'm pretty sure this is going to be more of a 5K really-fast-walk-with-occasional-bouts-of-jogging

And because the universe loves irony, I also received a sampling of Valrhona's new Grand Cru chocolate bars to try out at exactly the same time. (Yes, food blogging occasionally involves free chocolate. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.)

The package included three different kinds of chocolate: creamy sweet Bahibe milk chocolate, fruity Aranguani dark chocolate, and my most favourite of all, Blond Dulcey, an unusual blond chocolate with a creamy biscuity flavour that I can only describe as utterly addictive. I'm serious. This stuff should be classified as a controlled substance.

My initial plan was to just devour the entire chocolate bar straight-up while no one was looking, but that would've made for a really boring recipe.

So instead I decided to chop up the bar into itty-bitty chunks and folded it into my favourite chocolate chip cookie batter to make these gorgeously chewy cappuccino cookies. You see the sacrifices I make for you guys?

Thankfully, I'm a much better baker than I am a runner... because these are some pretty awesome cookies, if I do say so myself. They're big and soft and chewy, just like a proper chocolate chip cookie should be, and dotted all over with dark speckles of instant coffee and blond chocolate.

Of course, a creamy milk chocolate would do just fine if you can't hunt down a bar of Blond Dulcey, but the subtly bitter note of the coffee and the toasty caramel sweetness of the chocolate are particularly perfect together.

I plan on making another batch so that I can reward myself with one of these as my post-race treat at the end of the month. Forget the zombies... this is something worth running for.

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Big Fat Cappuccino Cookies

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

17 mins

Total time

27 mins

 

These big fat cookies are mostly sugar and butter, with just enough flour to help them hold together. Add speckles of instant coffee and chopped chocolate, and you've got yourself a seriously addictive cookie.

Author: Isabelle Boucher (Crumb)

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp instant espresso powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 bar (70g) Valhrona Blond chocolate, chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line two large cookie sheets parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until combined. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until completely incorporated, then stir in the vanilla.
3. In a second bowl, whisk together the flour, espresso powder, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add to the wet ingredients, and stir until just barely combined. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
4. Using a ¼ cup measure, scoop the cookie dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, spacing about 3" apart.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 15-17 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned and centres look set. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

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