I was looking to make a treat…
The fruit basket pie is (mostly) gone, and we try to keep ice cream intake to once a week at the most anyway. I haven’t made sugar cookies in a while, but then there was that bag of chocolate chips I took down from the cabinet over the refrigerator – you know, the cabinet that is a real pain to get to, filled – in our case – mostly with leftover holiday sweets fixin’s and, for some reason, a fair amount of Jello(!) – there must have been a REALLY good sale or something…
Chocolate chip cookies seemed to be the obvious choice; and I knew we had Bryan’s recipe from Chanticleer – great cookies. Well, I couldn’t find our copy of the recipe, and really, I don’t have Bryan’s permission to spread it all over who knows where anyway, so I went on a search. Recalling that Food Network has done right by me with pot roast, meat loaf and 
sugar cookies, I went right to them. BINGO!
The espresso doesn’t overwhelm – you can taste ‘something’ – is it some extra rich chocolate? – you’re not certain. The added bonus was that we’ve had this espresso powder
in the cupboard for a while, and it really needs to be used up – I mean, how much black bean espresso chili can two people eat?
The next time I make these I may add a touch of good cinnamon, just to see what happens.
SO, with all thanks due to Food Network, Mari Artinian and Glen Head, here’s the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
•1-1/2 sticks butter, cut into cubes
•1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
•1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
•1/2 cup granulated sugar
•1-1/2 tsp instant espresso
•2 large eggs
•1 tbsp vanilla extract
•2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•1 tsp baking soda
•1 tsp salt
•1 cup good quality chocolate chips or chunks
Preheat oven to 350º.
In a large mixing bowl, combine cold butter, dark brown sugar, light brown sugar, granulated sugar and espresso with a hand mixer. Mix at slow speed for 30 seconds and increase speed until the mixture is fluffy, about 6 minutes. Lower the speed and add the eggs 1 at a time. Add vanilla and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture in batches. Stir with a spatula until well blended. Fold in the chocolate chips or chunks and spoon the dough onto 2 parchment lined cookie sheets at least an inch apart. Bake for 14 to 15 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheet half way through so that the cookies bake evenly. Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Makes 24 cookies.
Notes: I only had light brown sugar, so doubled up on that – still lovely. I think the parchment and rotating the pans is KEY, as is the spacing between cookies. I used a large cookie scoop and got exactly 24 cookies, which spread out to a bit over 3 inches each, so don’t try for more than 12 cookies per pan.