Chocolate AND Coffee??

It simply isn't the holiday season without some homemade cookies, right?

Four...five...six batches of homemade cookies. Plus cookie parties. And cookie exchanges. And bottles of Pepto.

So in the spirit of things, I thought I'd bake these little beauties this week.

I started where all good things begin: with chocolate. Dark, Ghiradelli chocolate to be exact. I always keep some on hand, just in case.
Just in case I need to melt it down into creamy perfection using my version of a double boiler.
And then whip it into a batter of cocoa, brown sugar, butter, eggs, and coffee. That's right--coffee. Four teaspoons of instant to be precise. Good enough to lick right off of the beater, I tell you.

Now, I've never made this chocolate coffee cookie recipe before, so I was a bit surprised to find that after the usual cookie-making steps, I was instructed to flatten out the dough and freeze it until firm. Fortunately it was about 20 degrees outside, so I had no problems with the freezing part. I just put the dough right out on the patio table for about 20 minutes, and Presto! Firm as my backside was before I ate these cookies.

Then came the rolling and sugar-ing. Isn't that a pretty mountain of treats?

And aren't they nice little soldiers, all lined up and ready for the oven?

Twelve minutes or so and here they are, all warm and petite, looking so cozy on my plate next to a tall glass of ice-cold milk. With the bittersweet and dark chocolates, plus the coffee, they are rich but not too sweet, which makes them a great grown-up cookie.

Not that I eat them like a responsible grown-up, of course. I've already had 5.

Try them for yourself this season (click here)!

Happy Friday!

Day 6: PreMade Hostess

Smelling these wonderful homemade chocolate chip cookies makes me forget (a little) that I'm in "class" on a Saturday. Mrs. Marple's Fine Living class, that is. It's the last "food" day of the 28-day course, and personally I think we're ending on a good note with these cookies.

The point of the today's lesson, which piggybacks from yesterday's talk about doubling recipes, is that being prepared to host is part of living well.

While I was eating cookie dough from the spoon, Mrs. Marple encouraged us to not just consider the personal benefits of premade food (like better health, more time and financial savings), but to also think about how it might help us care for others.

Because who, I ask, wouldn't feel cared for with homemade chocolate chip cookies? No one, I dare say. And so I decided to make a batch and freeze the dough for later.

Which is, incidentally, a very easy thing to do. Just dump the dough on wax paper and roll it into a log. Then freeze. No advanced astro-physics degrees required.

And then when one of my friend pops over after having a very bad day, I can pop some of the dough into the oven and have fresh cookies for her in minutes. Guaranteed to improve her mood.

Aside from cookies, Mrs. Marple also reminded us that there might likely come a time when one of those premade frozen entrees we had stashed away for the future could come in handy for a neighbor who just had a baby or a friend who was ill. It makes the good intentions that we all have that much easier to follow through on.

I have to say that that Mrs. Marple is pretty smart.

Previous Days at the Institute:
Day 5: Getting Ahead
Day 3: Starting in the Kitchen
Day 2: the Secret to Fine Living