A Magical Journey to Cookieland, Part Two: Coffee & Tea

As I mentioned in my previous post about kosher baking chips, I'd been working on a cookie recipe for awhile now. While the results were edible, they weren't cookies I'd bother to eat if I hadn't just invested quite a bit of ingredients and time into making them.

My cookie standard--at least for chocolate chip and other "Toll House"-style drop cookies--is a soft, chewy inside with a surrounding edge that almost has a crunch to it and a crackly top. I don't usually care for just soft cookies, there has to be a complexity of textures, a certain crumb, that makes for a really satisfying cookie.

My ideal cookie is pretty similar to baker Maury Rubin's description, quoted in the (oft-linked) July 2008 New York Times article:

'First there’s the crunchy outside inch or so [...]' A nibble revealed a crackle to the bite and a distinct flavor of butter and caramel. 'Then there’s the center, which is soft.' A bull’s-eye the size of a half-dollar yielded easily. [...] 'But the real magic [...] is the one-and-a-half-inch ring between them where the two textures and all the flavors mix.'

Yeah. That sounds about right. Of course, being vegan, I don't really agree with the article's means for achieving this loveliness (they make fun of "eggless renditions").

Anyhow, finding those coffee chocolate chips Thursday seemed to be sign that I needed make another attempt at achieving mocha chip perfection. I managed to get pretty close, rethinking my ratio of rising agent, and the amount of flour. However, I'm wierd and like to make these kinds of challenges for myself: in this instance, it was refusing to look at other vegan recipes. The first two batches I made (failures), I didn't really consult other recipes at all. This time I looked at a few omni recipes--mainly this Martha Stewart one, which didn't really end up looking like my recipe very much, but helped me with the rising agent issue. (By the way, if anyone knows a good source for understanding the theory behind ratios of rising agents to flour and the interactions between baking soda/powder and other ingredients, i.e. alkaline and non-alkaline, I'm really interested. Google and joyofbaking.com didn't help me out too much.)

The batch I made Friday was a test batch for making them Sunday to take into the office. I ate some, shared some with my roommate, and took some with me to the LES to share with Blythe (who tried to talk me out of blogging this recipe) and Derek of Lula's Sweet Apothecary...which resulted in me possibly doing some baking for them in the future (!). Maybe. There's this minor thing called grad school, and it seems to involve a bit of time....

Here's my recipe:


Mocha Chip Cookies
yields about 10 cookies

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp tapioca flour + 3 tbsp water
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 - 1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup coffee chocolate chips (Leiber's or regular vegan chocolate chips)*
optional 1/3 cup coffee lentils for decorating tops (reduce chips to 1/3 cup)**

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk tapioca flour and water together until completely dissolved. Add evaporated cane juice, brown sugar, espresso powder, vanilla extract, and canola oil and whisk to emulsify.

Put your whisk away, and sift in dry ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon until thorougly combined. Then stir in coffee chips.

Dollop cookies out onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. If using coffee lentils lightly press a few into the top of each cookie. Bake at 350 F for about 11 minutes. Edges should be dried out; cookie centers should be slightly cracked but still soft. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for about 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack (or parchment-lined plates, if you are like me and don't own a cooling rack).

*If using regular semisweet chocolate chips, I suggest using 1 1/2 - 2 tsp espresso powder.

**The coffee lentils I used are Kopper's brand; I got them from Economy Candy (mentioned in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) on the Lower East Side. They also carry chocolate mint lentils and plain chocolate lentils as well.


One of the things that came about in the course of my experimentation with this recipe is rediscovering thickeners like cornstarch and tapioca flour as egg-replacers. When I first became vegan, I remember checking out from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh this PETA (I know) cookbook in which cornstarch mixed with water was suggested as an egg replacer. I remember using it effectively in a couple different things shortly after that (usually when I was out of other egg replacers). But over time I relied on flax and other stuff instead and sort of forgot about it. However, in this case I think it may really help contribute the the crackly-chewy texture. Isa recently posted a recipe for some delicious-looking chocolate chip cookies that uses tapioca flour. It's got me thinking about other options for egg replacing. Here's a list of other egg replacements, several of which I've never thought about before.


A final note about this recipe (as if there weren't enough already): it makes a small batch, but is really really easy to double. I did just that when I baked up a bunch on Sunday to take into the office where I intern, and to share with my fellow library GA on the Monday night shift.

I also made a batch of Terry's Green Tea Walnut Biscotti, which I'd had my eye on ever since she posted the recipe.

Although mine didn't turn out as vibrantly green as Esme's "She-Hulk" biscotti, they were of course, very delicious. Perfect biscotti crumb, buttery but light. And the green tea flavor had depth, but wasn't rich. Now I want more green tea-flavored things in my life. And actually I've been kind of on a green tea-drinking kick since making them.

Everyone else really liked them too.

If you made it to the end of this post, congratulations I guess. Not having to write papers for class anymore seems to have me funneling all my typing energy into foodblogging.