Food Lust People Love: espresso powder

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Liquid Cocaine (Espresso-White Chocolate) Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

Modeled after the secret menu drink from Starbucks called Liquid Cocaine, these crispy-edged chewy-inside cookies are full of espresso and white chocolate.

This month’s Creative Cookie Exchange ingredient is white chocolate, which I must admit is not my favorite. I find it rather sweet without the essential bitterness of the cacao. But matched with the strong espresso in the dough, this cookie balances that sweetness out beautifully.

A couple of years ago, for Muffin Monday, our ingredient was coffee so my younger daughter suggested that I research alternative Starbucks recipes and then turn one of them into a muffin. It was an excellent suggestion! I chose one called Liquid Cocaine, with four shots of espresso and four pumps of white chocolate. I couldn’t resist recreating it in cookie for this white chocolate challenge, sans the wild party pics, although I did add a little alcohol to the actual cookie.

Party down with muffins: Liquid Cocaine (Espresso and White Chocolate) Muffins

Ingredients for about two dozen cookies (I got 27.)
4 teaspoons espresso powder
1 tablespoon Kahlua
1 cup or 200g sugar
1/2 cup or 115g butter, at room temperature
1 egg, room temperature
2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 oz or 170g good quality white chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli.)

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°f or 180°C and prepare your cookie sheet by lining it with parchment or a silicone liner.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix your espresso powder in with the Kahlua till it dissolves.

In another larger bowl, measure out your dry ingredients and stir well.

Cream the butter with the sugar using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the egg.

Then add the Kahlua/espresso syrup and mix again until thoroughly combined.

Sift your dry ingredients into your batter and mix well.

Stir in the white chocolate chips.

Drop the dough in scoops on your prepared cookie sheet and bake for about 18-20 minutes. With the first pan to go in the oven, I pressed all but one of the balls down to flatten them. I wanted to see what that one ball would do.

Turns out, it makes a more interesting and pretty cookie to leave them in a ball and let them flatten out themselves, so the second pan to go in were all left in balls.

These guys are crispy around the edges and chewy in the middle, which is pretty much my perfect cookie.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to our organizer, Laura of The Spiced Life for this month’s white chocolate challenge. If you are a blogger and would like to join us for future challenges, scroll down after the link list to see how.

Check out all the great white chocolate cookie recipes we have for you this month!

If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes--be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts. You can find all of them at The Spiced Life. We post a new cookie on the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Coffee Ice Cream #IceCreamTuesday

Coffee ice cream is the perfect blend of sweet and strong, especially this one from the master of all-things-coffee, Patricia McCausland-Gallo and her book, Passion for Coffee.

Food Lust People Love: Coffee ice cream is the perfect blend of sweet and strong, especially this one from the master of all-things-coffee, Patricia McCausland-Gallo and her book, Passion for Coffee.

The summer I was eight, my family moved from Trinidad to Caracas, Venezuela. We lived for a little while in a hotel while we waited for our rental house to be ready for move in. It became a ritual for my mom to take us for a treat each afternoon at a nearby pastelería that also served ice cream. She could get a café con leche and my sisters and I would get ice cream. I always chose coffee. Always. I am not much of a sweet eater, despite all the baking that goes on around here, but coffee ice cream is my all-time favorite.

Last week I shared a savory recipe - Rump Steak with Wine-Balsamic Coffee Glaze

from Patricia’s wonderful coffee-centric book with the promise of the coffee ice cream soon and here it is!

Reprinted with permission. Metric conversions are my own. Any adaptations are in parentheses. The method is rewritten in my own words with some modifications.

Ingredients for 1 hefty pint or about 2 1/3 cups of ice cream
1 1/2 cups or 355ml heavy cream
1 1/2 cups or 355ml 2% milk
2/3 cup or 130g granulated sugar
1/4 cup or 50g brown sugar
3 egg yolks (I used four by accident.)
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules (I used espresso powder.)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Equipment needed:
Ice cream maker

Method
Whisk the cream, milk, brown sugar, white sugar, egg yolks, coffee, and salt together in a large heavy-bottomed pot, off the stove.

Put it on the stove and cook over the mixture over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until you are sure the brown sugar has dissolved and the mixture has thickened. This takes about seven or eight minutes.

Remove from the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Add ice and some water to a large bowl and set another bowl inside of it.

Strain your thickened mixture into the inside bowl and stir until it is cool.

Cover the surface of the mixture with cling film and refrigerate until it is completely cold.

Transfer your mixture to an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions.