Mocha Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate and mocha together. Ok, so that’s basically just chocolate and chocolate but it’s still really good. These cookies are super chewy and very chocolate-y but they are a little tricky – you actually have to melt some of the chocolate you use in a double boiler. You can actually buy a double boiler but of course you do not have to – I’ll take you through how to melt the chocolate without one. You could do it in a microwave, too, but I don’t recommend that. I’ve tried it multiple times and it never seems to come out right – the chocolate gets kind of chalky and gross and even if you think you’re saving time, it’s totally not worth it.

All that said, don’t be afraid of this one. First off, as I always say – sometimes you fail and that’s totally, completely, absolutely FINE. No one ever learned anything 100% right on the first try. Except maybe Roger Federer. But that doesn’t matter – you won’t fail here. And you’ll be rewarded with really tasty cookies!

Also – read the ingredients list completely before you start. You’ll have most of these ingredients already, but you probably don’t have instant coffee. I actually have some just so I can use it in recipes. Honestly it probably expired years ago, but it hasn’t hurt anyone yet!

Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

· 4 oz unsweetened chocolate

· 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

· ½ cup butter

· ½ cup flour

· ½ t baking powder

· ½ t salt

· 4 eggs, room temperature

· 1 ½ cups sugar

· 1 ½ T instant coffee

· 3 t vanilla

Directions

Put a little water (like about a half to three quarters of an inch deep) in a sauce pan, and heat it on the stove. You don’t need to boil the water, but it needs to steam. You’re going to use this as the bottom part of your makeshift double boiler. Take a metal or Pyrex glass bowl and sit it on the sauce pan. It should NOT go IN the water, it should be above it. What you’re going to do, then, is allow the heat from the steam coming from the water to slowly melt the chocolate. Please don’t put a cold glass bowl over the heat, though – ideally if you’re using a Pyrex glass bowl put it on before you turn the heat on so that the heat doesn’t crack the bowl.

Put the unsweetened chocolate, 1 ½ cups of the chocolate chips and the butter into the bowl and melt it. Keep stirring until the mixture is smooth. If there are a couple lumps of chocolate here and there that’s close enough – they’ll melt once the bowl is taken off the heat. Hint: you might want to break up the unsweetened chocolate squares before you put them in the bowl…whack ‘em with a hammer or something – the smaller the pieces the faster and easier they’ll melt.

Once the chocolate is (mostly) smooth, remove the bowl from the heat.

In another bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In another bowl (yeah, I know, lots of bowls for this one – sorry) beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture is fairly thick, then add the instant coffee and vanilla and beat that sucker again until everything is well blended.

Next, take the melted chocolate and pour it into the egg mixture.

mocha cookies 1 Take a wooden spoon and gently stir it, just until everything is combined – it won’t take long. This is actually called “folding” – you fold one mixture into the other one. Once you’re done here, take the flour mixture and do the same thing – pour that into this bowl and gently stir it until it’s just combined. Finally, pour in the rest of the chocolate chips (you should have a cup and a half left) and stir until they’re pretty evenly spread throughout. Let the batter sit for about 15 minutes so that it stiffens up a bit. Maybe clean those other two bowls and put the saucepan away. Or have a beer. Only you can decide what’s the better use of your time.

Put heaping tablespoons on an ungreased cookie sheet (or better yet, one lined with parchment paper). Bake at 350 for about 8-10 minutes. The cookies will be shiny and kind of cracked along the top. Let them cool for a couple minutes on the baking sheet, then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

mocha cookies 2