Chocolate Coffee Cookies

I decided to make cookies, and mulled over the options.

Nuts? Chips? Sprinkles?

I had some crushed peppermint that I wanted to use in baking, and thought it would be great with chocolate.

But when I got around to mixing up the ingredients, my plans took a left turn.

I had the bottle of vanilla out, then decided to add coffee liqueur instead. I used a local Colorado brand, but any one you like should be fine.

 Thin and Chewy Chocolate Coffee Cookies

2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon coffee liqueur
2 eggs
2 ounces bitttersweet chocolate, melted
1/4 cup Greek-style yogurt

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to combine well.

In a separate medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add coffee liqueur and continue beating to combine. Add eggs and beat well, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the melted chocolate and beat well.

Add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternately with the yogurt in halves, beating on low to combine after each addition, and scraping down the bowl as needed.

Transfer the dough to a smaller container, cover and refrigerate over night or up to two days.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Using a small scoop or a teaspoon, place small scoops of dough on the sheet, leaving plenty of space between the cookies to spread.

Bake at 375 degrees until the tops of the cookies are set - about 14 minutes. If you watch the cookies as they bake, they'll puff up and then sink down again. When the tops are just set, the cookies will be chewy. If you prefer a completely crisp cookie, bake them a minute or two longer.

Note: I live at high altitude, so if you live at sea level, these might turn out differently - they might puff up and stay that way. If you try them, let me know.

Holiday Spice Cookies

If you don't bake any other time of the year, when December rolls around, it seems like there's a need for cookies - for Santa snacks, a cookie exchange, for guests, or as a simple treat for yourself after a hard day of shopping or decorating.

While these cookies have familiar holiday spices, they aren't quite like gingerbread. In fact, I've known some gingerbread-haters who have loved them. They're perfect with a cup of coffee, some hot chai tea, or even a mug of hot chocolate.

These are refrigerator cookies - make them one day and let them chill. Perfect when you want to be prepped and ready to bake on another day.

You can get carried away with decorating, if that's your style, or use something simple, like sugar pearls. You can find sugar pearls in a huge variety of colors to match the holiday - or just pick your favorite colors.

I got a big bag of assorted red, green and white pearls from King Arthur Flour - enough to decorate cookies, cakes, and anything else that gets in my way.

If you're using a Christmas tree cookie cutter like I did (or even wreath), the little pearls make perfect ornaments. Just press them into the unbaked dough, and your decorating is done.

Or let pretty cookie cutters do all the work for you and leave the cookies plain. Whatever you decide, you can rest assured that they'll be a tasty addition to the cookie platter, and not quite like anything else on the plate.

The honey you use can have an impact on the flavor, with light honey giving a more subtle flavor, and dark honey making more of an impact. Same with the brown sugar. The dark brown will have more flavor and the cookies will be a little darker. There are no wrong choices - make these cookies your way.

Holiday Spice Cookies

2 cups (9 ounces) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon mace
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, allspice, mace, and nutmeg. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer. Add the honey and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue beating until the egg is completely incorporated, then add the vanilla and continue beating until it is incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and beat on low just until it is all combined.

This mixture need to be refrigerated for at least several hours; overnight is best. You can transfer it to a smaller bowl for storage, or wrap it in plastic wrap - whichever is easier for you.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide the dough in half and put the unused half into the refrigerator while you work with the first. Lightly sprinkle your work surface with flour and roll the first half to about 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut the cookies into your desired shapes. Transfer the cookies to the parchment. If the dough gets to soft to work with, return it to the refrigerator to firm it up again.

Add decorations, if desired. Bake at 350 degrees until the cookies are firm on top and are just beginning to brown on the edges, about 8-12 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and cool completely on a rack.

You can work on rolling and cutting the second half of the dough while the first bakes.

Save all the unused scraps from both batches. You can re-roll it and make more cookies. Instead of cookie-cutter shapes, you can roll them into balls and flatten them, so you won't end up with even more scraps to re-roll.

Update: This recipe just won a cookie contest at Culinary School of the Rockies. Read about it here.

Bread Ingredients: More Than Just White Flour

Clockwise from top left: semolina, durum, whole wheat.

While most people are going to use nothing but refined white flour in their pizza dough, some people like to experiment with other types of flour. And of course, bread bakers are going to use a much wider range of flours. Here’s a quick glossary on some of the more common varieties.

Semolina – Often used in pastas, semolina comes from durum wheat, a hard, high-protein wheat. While it has a lot of protein, it’s not the type of gluten that works well in bread, so it’s usually combined with standard refined wheat flour when making bread. There are some exceptions, of course. When it’s labeled “semolina” the flour is more coarsely ground. When it’s labeled “durum” it more finely ground. I like adding semolina to my dough recipes for the depth of flavor it adds.

Whole Wheat – The bran and germ of the wheat are included along with the endosperm, whereas normal white flour contains only the endosperm. Whole wheat flour tends to absorb more moisture that while flour, so you need to adjust for that if you’re making a substitution in a recipe. Whole wheat flours have a shorter shelf life than white wheat, since the oil in the whole wheat can go rancid. If you don’t use it quickly, it’s best to store it in the refrigerator or freezer.

Stone Ground Whole Wheat – A coarser ground version of whole wheat, and milled differently than whole wheat. One thing to keep in mind with any whole wheat flour is that the coarseness can vary from brand to brand.

White Whole Wheat – This flour comes from a lighter-colored wheat. Red wheat is more typically used for making flour; the major difference is the pigment in the outer layers of the grain. White whole wheat flour is usually ground more finely than standard whole wheat, as well, so the texture is more like refined white flour. Since the red pigment in wheat can be bitter, white whole wheat breads have less of that bitter flavor. White whole wheat needs less moisture adjustment when making substitutions than other types of whole wheat.

Spelt – an ancient species of wheat that is becoming more popular these days. When it first appeared on store shelves, it was often sold as a non-wheat alternative for people with gluten sensitivities. Spelt contains gluten, but some people with mild gluten issues can tolerate it better than regular wheat. As far as baking, the gluten in spelt develops quickly, but it’s fragile, so it’s possible to overknead a spelt dough. I’ve seen both white spelt flour and whole-grain spelt flour in stores.

Rye – While most pizza-makers aren’t going to be making all-rye crusts for their pizzas, it’s interesting to note that rye flour is acceptable as a bread improver for French breads up to a maximum of 2 percent of the flour. Some bakers like the way rye changes the texture and color of the finished bread, but others appreciate the fact that it can increase the shelf life of the product.

Like wheat flour, there are a number of different types of rye flour available, from white rye that is made from only the endosperm of the grain, all the way to pumpernickel flour which is the rye equivalent of stone ground whole wheat. Dark rye and pumpernickel aren’t quite the same thing. Pumpernickel is a whole grain flour, coarsely ground, whereas dark rye usually contains very little of the endosperm. Of course, depending on brand, definitions could change.

Rye flour isn’t particularly dark when it’s dry – there’s not that much difference in color between the white rye (left)  and dark rye (right)  in this photo:

An interesting thing about rye is that the endosperm of the rye contains a significant amount of fiber, so white rye bread is not the dietary equivalent of white bread made from wheat flour. Rye contains gluten, but not as much as wheat. It also has more soluble sugars than wheat flour, so it ferments faster. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it can ferment too quickly and collapse.

One problem with using whole grain and alternative flours in baking is that there’s a lot less consistency from brand to brand than with white flours. One brand of whole wheat might be milled a little coarser than another, or there might be more or less bran. What that means is that volume-to-weight conversions can be difficult if a recipe doesn’t specify a weight for the alternative flours in the recipe.

But even if you know the correct weight, you’re not home free. Whole grain flours can absorb a lot more water than white flours. If your chosen brand of whole grain flour isn’t the same one the recipe writer was using, you still might end up with a dough that is too wet or too dry, even though your weights are completely accurate. If you use a lot of whole grain and alternative flours, be ready to adjust the hydration, if needed.

Of course, this is just a sampling of the possible grains that could go into a dough, but once you’ve mastered the varieties of wheat and you’ve added rye to your arsenal, you should be ready to experiment on your own.