Elegant chocolate chip cookies

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, July 17, 2004

Espresso chocolate chews

1pound bittersweet chocolate

1/4cup butter

1 1/2cups sugar

4eggs

1tablespoons vanilla extract

5tablespoons flour

1teaspoon baking soda

2tablespoons instant espresso powder

1 1/2cups chocolate chips

1/2cup chopped toasted walnuts

Powdered sugar

Chop chocolate into small chunks. Melt in microwave on medium power, checking and stirring every 20 to 30 seconds. Add butter after chocolate has begun to melt. Blend butter and chocolate and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, beat sugar and eggs until pale and thick. Beat in vanilla. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture.

Sift together flour, baking soda and espresso powder. Add to egg mixture and blend.

Stir in chocolate chips and chopped nuts. Let dough rest about 30 minutes, until chocolate has begun to set and dough can be scooped.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Scoop dough into tablespoon-sized balls. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat or sprayed with nonstick spray. Cookies will spread.

Baking for 18 to 20 minutes. Cool, then dust with powdered sugar.

Cookies will have a meringue-like crust and a chewy center.

Makes about 60 cookies.

Adapted slightly from a recipe by chocolatier Kim Troy, owner of Bliss Confections in Boulder, Colo.

For next week

Shopping list

To make an entree for four, you’ll need:

1 pound medium shrimp (about 24)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

24 jumbo pasta shells (conchiglie)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/3 cup grated Parmesan

1 pound ricotta

1 cup grated mozzarella

2 or 3 cloves of garlic

4 tablespoons chopped basil leaves, stems removed, plus whole basil leaves for garnish

1 cup toasted coarse bread crumbs

1 lemon

3 ripe tomatoes

If cookies are on the list of the top 5 foods, and espresso chocolate cookies on the list of the top 5 cookies, it follows that espresso chocolate cookies are on the list of the top 25 foods.

Pretty heady company. But these are pretty heady cookies.

They are not super-size chocolate-chunker ham-fisted cookies. These are grownup cookies.

The flavors of chocolate and espresso are elegant, especially if you use high quality chocolate.

There are toasted nuts. You can substitute pecans if you don’t like walnuts, but be sure they’re toasted. In many cases, bakers chop nuts too finely, but in this case the pieces should be small.

Along the same lines, I would suggest using smallish chocolate chips if you have a choice. Mini chocolate chips probably wouldn’t survive the trip through the oven because the cookies bake for 20 minutes, but avoid those big honking chunk-style chips.

The best thing about the cookies is the texture. They have a crisp shell, almost like a meringue, with a chewy center, almost like a fudge brownie.

If you dredge them in powdered sugar after baking them, you add another sublime element to the cookie-eating experience.

Here’s a tip: After you melt the chocolate, you have to let it cool or you’ll cook the egg and have scrambled chocolate.

But don’t let it cool too long, especially with the whisk still sitting in the chocolate. It will harden to a solid mass and you will have to chip your whisk out before you can microwave the chocolate back to the proper consistency.

When you dredge the cookies, wait until they’ve cooled or you’ll melt the powdered sugar, and that’s just wrong. Dredge twice for superior results.

Now, I’m going on vacation. You can enjoy guest chefs in the next two weeks, and I’ll be back Aug. 8.

Features editor Melanie Munk: 425-339-3430 or munk@heraldnet.com.