Melt In Your Mouth

Sometimes my best recipes result out of the necessity to clean out my ever-overflowing pantry and a second wind before bedtime. Thanks to a late night baking experiment last week, I may have created my favorite chocolate cookie recipe yet.

These mocha cookies are dense in flavor like a brownie but have a light, airy texture, similar a meringue cookie. I’d recommend using a very high quality chocolate for these cookies (I prefer Scharffen Berger).

Mocha Meltaways

Yield: About 24 cookies

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate 

1/2 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup sugar

1. In the top of a double boiler, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat when the mixture is fully melted and well combined.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together the cake flour , baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix the espresso powder and water and set aside.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with a wire whip attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and coffee mixture until fluffy, about 6 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium and add the chocolate mixture; blend until fully incorporated, about 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture until just incorporated, about 1 minute. (The dough will look about the consistency of brownie batter.)

4. Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.  

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper and use a medium sized cookie scoop to scoop the dough. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, on the middle rack of your oven for 13-15 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the cookies as they go from a gooey center to having a burnt bottom fairly quickly. Let cool on sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool.