Mocha Crinkles

Chocolate Crinkles are my absolute favorite cookie:

I like to make them in the winter because they're kind of like a mug of hot chocolate in cookie form with a snowy powdered sugar exterior. (I know, I know...I'm from California, what I know about snow?)

Anyway, I thought I'd take my favorite cookie and see if I could integrate one of my other favorite things: coffee! When used in baking, coffee is usually just to enhance chocolate flavor but I wanted coffee have a starring (or at least co-starring) role in this cookie. Espresso powder would probably be great for this recipe, but it's not a thing I tend to keep in my kitchen so I decided to work the recipe with brewed coffee instead. I did about 1 part coffee grounds and 2 parts hot water and let it steep for about 30 minutes while I melted the chocolate and prepped all the other ingredients. (A french press is pretty ideal for this operation.)

There are a lot of different recipes for chocolate crinkles so I took the best bits from several and made my own and then immediately rejiggered it to integrate the coffee.


Mocha Crinkles

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup very strong coffee
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  Powdered sugar for coating cookies

• In an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and chocolate.
• Add the eggs, egg yolk, baking powder, and vanilla. Mix on medium speed until everything is incorporated.
• With the mixer running at low speed, slowly pour in the coffee.
• Gradually add the flour, mixing on medium-low speed and occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl. The dough will be soft and sticky.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least an hour. This will make it much easier to handle and affects the baking time. Seriously, don't skip this step.

*One hour later...*

• Preheat the oven to 350º and put about a cup of powdered sugar in a medium bowl.
• Roll the dough into 1 1/2" balls and roll each in the powdered sugar.

• Place the coated balls onto a silpat or greased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 7-10 minutes. The trick here is to under bake them a bit without leaving them raw inside. This gives them a moist, fudgey texture. The cookies should have risen and cracked but when you touch them they don't spring right back. If they do spring back, they're a little over done. Not burned per se, but they'll be dry and not very chocolatey. (Just dip those ones in some milk!)
• Transfer them to cooling racks as soon as they're cool enough to move.
• Enjoy! And make sure you have plenty of napkins!!