Blunt Force Chocolate: Mocha Cookies

After taking a couple of weeks off from baking after our holiday party, I decided to kick off my 2012 baking with a recipe for Mocha Cookies from Euro Pane Bakery that was featured in the Los Angeles Times' last Culinary SOS column of 2011.

I could tell just from reading the recipe that these cookies would be over-the-top chocolate. I made a double batch, which required almost four pounds (!) of chocolate, and only one cup of flour. The recipe ratios and method reminded me quite a bit of a Bon Appetit recipe for Giant Chocolate-Toffee Cookies that is a favorite of mine, since it produces marvelously chewy cookies.

Anyway, back to the mocha cookies. These are actually quite easy to make. You start by melting together butter and chocolate, and then setting the mixture aside to cool a bit. Meanwhile, you beat eggs, add sugar, add the melted chocolate and some brewed espresso, incorporate the dry ingredients (pastry flour, baking soda, salt), and then fold in dark chocolate chunks. I melted 72% chocolate for the batter, and chopped 54% chocolate for the chunks. I don't keep pastry flour on hand, so I used a 50-50 mixture of cake flour and White Lily all purpose flour. You chill the batter until it's firm enough to scoop. I used a #24 scoop and got exactly 72 cookies from the double batch of dough. The cookies puffed and cracked during baking, and some of the cookies ended up with a hollow space inside.

Not surprisingly, these cookies are chocolatey. Very chocolatey. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I thought they were too chocolatey. I wish I hadn't used 72% chocolate for the batter; I think I should have used something around 60% instead. Eating this cookie is a bit like getting clubbed over the head with chocolate. Apparently, a lot of people enjoy this sensation, as these cookies were very well received. However, I just thought that the flavor was disappointingly flat, even with the espresso flavor in the background. Also, while the cookies were crisp on the outside and moist on the inside, they did not have the uber-chewy texture of the giant chocolate-toffee cookie that I love so much. (As a side note, the flaky quality of the cookie's outer crust creates lots and lots of crumbs. You definitely need a plate to eat one of these.) Especially given how much chocolate this recipe requires, I don't imagine that I'll be making these cookies again.

Recipe: "Mocha cookies" from Euro Pane Bakery, recipe featured in the December 29, 2011, Los Angeles Times.

Previous Post: "A Cookie For the Road," June 22, 2008.