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Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies

Hey, are you ready for some cookies? How about some Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies?

Mocha Hazelnut Coffee and Cream Cookies


Yeah. That’s right. Hazelnut. Mocha. Coffee. Cream. Cookies. That’s five good words right there.

Full disclosure. I’m not a coffee drinker. Never have been. Probably never will be. It’s not that I don’t like the taste of coffee. I do. Oh, and I love the aroma when it’s brewing.

(Except for when I was pregnant and suffering from 24/7 “morning” sickness, coffee was one of those trigger smells. Not exactly convenient when the office I worked in was filled with the smell of coffee brewing in every kitchen of the building :(

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

I have two problems with coffee. First, I like it light and sweet… at which point, I figure I’m just drinking dessert.

I couldn’t possibly drink a “dessert” cup of coffee every morning :/ Instead, I’ve lived my life as a tea drinker, unsweetened, and occasionally with a splash of milk.

Second, there’s the issue of caffeine in coffee. I swear one sip and I can feel it. Even if it’s decaffeinated. It’s probably all in my head, but my body will tell you otherwise.

But coffee ice cream? Or affogato? Or mocha anything? All good, especially when they taste like my preferred light and sweet coffee :)

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

Another thing I like about coffee? It does an amazing job of intensifying the taste of chocolate. I use espresso powder in these brownies and these other brownies and these cupcakes, just for a few examples. Those recipes are simply not the same without that espresso powder.

When coffee is used to intensify the taste of chocolate, I don’t want to taste the coffee. I want it to be ALL about the chocolate.

I don’t want to know it’s there. I just want it to do its job quietly, in the background. So, I try to balance the amount of espresso carefully in those recipes.

But for today’s Mocha Hazelnut Coffee and Cream Cookies? Well, between the “mocha” and the “coffee”, I needed to make sure that flavor came through.

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

Now, there’s a bit of debate in our house about how much that flavor should come through. While I’m a tea drinker, my husband is a serious coffee guy. For him, there couldn’t possibly be enough coffee flavor in a cookie.

I may have mentioned he was experimenting with some cookies last year (of the mocha variety) that pretty much knocked me off my feet after one bite. I think those cookies were as close as you could come to actually eating coffee :/

I can safely say that he had no worries about anyone else digging into that cookie stash. Those cookies were made for one person only. And that person was quite happy with them.

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

So I tackled that whole idea again, but from a much more moderate perspective. I wanted a smoother ride for my cookie.

I said I loved the smell of coffee brewing, but hazelnut coffee? Even better. Yep, I would add hazelnuts to my cookie.

Next, I wanted three hits of chocolate. First, just a spoonful of cocoa in the batter. This would add a little cocoa richness to the dough, create a lovely bit of color, yet it wouldn’t turn the whole thing into a chocolate cookie.

For two more hits of chocolate, I went for chips. Two kinds, semi-sweet and milk chocolate. I use that same combo in my Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

And really, it’s pretty much a winning strategy in any chip cookie. The variation in chocolate really makes the flavor so much more interesting, and for me, gives the cookie more depth.

I always have a bunch of different chips in my pantry, so as far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier.

White chocolate chips would deliver the cream element of the cookie. I never wanted a white chocolate bunny on Easter, but boy, white chocolate chips in cookies are a dream!

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

(This post contains an affiliate link below. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) 

Okay, this next step is a little additional work, but it’s a brilliant move, I assure you. I chopped everything up. Ugh! And you know how I hate chopping chocolate! Trust me. It’s worth it.

That’s right, instead of just throwing all those chips and nuts right into the cookie, I broke them down into smaller pieces. I used one of those choppers where you just push the top up and down. But, you could also just chop them up by hand.

Normally, I wouldn’t use a chopper for chocolate. I know I couldn’t chop big blocks of chocolate with that tool. But, I was chopping small amounts of chocolate that were already in small pieces, so it worked fine. (That being said, it’s great for chopping up nuts.)

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

Why the extra step? I wanted all the flavors to be distributed evenly throughout the cookie, instead of hitting them one at a time with each bite. Chopping them up allowed each ingredient to be more fully incorporated into the cookie dough.

And, because I used the chopper, I had some bigger chunks, smaller chunks and some powder. Imperfectly perfect! The powder would just melt right into the cookie while the bigger chunks would give you a more concentrated bit of flavor.

Chopping the chips and nuts up will also affect the texture of the cookie. There’s no bumpy bits of chip then dough, chip then dough. It certainly doesn’t look like your average chocolate chip cookie. It’s much more uniform. There’s delicious flavor throughout.

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

When they bake, they’ll get lovely crackled tops. They’ll puff a bit in the oven and then settle back down when they cool.

Once they cool, you’ll have a slightly crispy exterior and a soft, chewy center. Oh my gosh, they were even better than I expected! So. Darn. Good!

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

The coffee flavor was definitely present, but mellow. The chopped up hazelnuts and chocolate chips were nicely balanced, not one overpowering any of the others.

I stored them in a zip top bag overnight and the next day? The crispy edges had softened. The cookies were now uniformly soft and chewy with a wonderful, sink your teeth into it, bite.

A coffee drinker, I am not. But Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies?

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

Thank you. I’ll have two :)

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies. A soft chewy cookie with the flavors of your favorite coffee. Four kinds of chocolate and toasted hazelnuts make for the most delicious cookie!

Hazelnut Mocha Coffee and Cream Cookies

Yield: 18 cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, I used Hershey's
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons espresso powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped milk chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
  2. With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and continue beating until incorporated, scraping bowl and beaters as necessary.
  3. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing on low until blended. Stir in chopped chips and nuts until evenly distributed. Cover surface of the dough directly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 45 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Scoop 2 Tablespoons of chilled cookie dough and roll into a ball. Repeat with balance of dough. 
  5. Place cookie dough balls 2" apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 13-16 minutes until tops are crackly and edges are a light golden brown. Mine took about 14 minutes. 
  6. Allow to cool completely on baking sheets. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Notes

*Chopping up the chocolate and nuts is an extra step to normal chip cookies, but this allows the flavor to distribute throughout the cookie. Make sure to take your measurements after chopping, not before.

*If you're all about coffee flavor, try increasing the amount of espresso powder to 2 teaspoons. Then, you can always adjust up or down for future batches. If you just like a nice mellow, but definitely present coffee flavor, just stick to the recipe amount to start and adjust to your preference for future batches.

The Merchant Baker Copyright © 2018

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Rizi Harris

Friday 19th of March 2021

I modified for a bit of a healthier version: 6.375oz whole wheat pastry flour, 1/2 c. mini dark chocolate chips, no white choc chips, vegan butter. Still too sweet for me. I would reduce the sugars next time and press the cookie down with my hands a bit. Love the mix of flavors though.

Ramona

Friday 19th of March 2021

Rizi, thanks for sharing your experience with substitutions. I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the mix of flavors.

Rizi Harris

Friday 19th of March 2021

I modified for a bit of a healthier version: 6.375oz, 1/2 c. mini chocolate chips, no white choc chips, vegan butter. Still too sweet for me. I would reduce the sugar next time and press the cookie down with my hands a bit. Love the mix of flavors though.

Mackienze

Friday 24th of January 2020

This is a question rather than a comment. Do you have to use espresso or could you use actual brewed coffee? At my house we go and buy beans and grind them fresh for each pot of coffee. And sometimes we mix and match then flavors. If I could use some brewed coffee it would be so much more unique (I think anyway)

Ramona

Saturday 25th of January 2020

Hi Mackienze, unfortunately, actual brewed coffee is not a great choice here. It's not about the amazing flavor mixture you might create, it's about liquid and concentrated flavor. Adding liquid to this cookie batter would change it. Sure, a spoonful wouldn't affect it much just like when you add extract. But, extract is concentrated. I don't think a spoonful of brewed coffee is going to give you enough noticeable flavor. Brewed coffee is a much better choice for cakes where you can sub it in for some of the liquid. So, for instance, in my crazy chocolate olive oil cake, you could sub the water for brewed coffee and skip the espresso powder. I'm sure it would make a fabulous mocha chocolate cake with great coffee flavor. For this cookie recipe, however, you could try experimenting with your freshly ground beans. I would insure they are finely ground and then you might want to experiment with amounts. I think the ground coffee is probably stronger in flavor than espresso powder, so you might want to try a little less to start and then adjust for your next batch. I don't know for sure because I always use espresso powder. In any case, you're going to want to add the coffee flavor in dry form, not in liquid form. Would love to hear what you try! Good luck!

Laura

Tuesday 31st of July 2018

I made this and taste amazing! color of my dough & cookies are much darker though! I don’t know what it could be, maybe we the color of cocoa and espresso powder I used are darker than yours? Did you use light brown or dark brown sugar? I am gonna make it again in few days thank you for so this delicious recipe!!

Ramona

Tuesday 31st of July 2018

Hi Laura, great to hear you enjoyed these. We loved them! I think chopping the chips and nuts makes a huge difference in texture and taste. Now, for the ingredients/color questions... I use all different kinds of cocoa powder for different recipes. For instance, I use a different cocoa my brownie recipes, check out my post on Black Cocoa Brownies. That cocoa makes my cakes and cookies a delicious deep rich dark color and has amazing flavor. For this particular cookie recipe, however, I used just plain ole' Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa, not the special dark variety, just the plain unsweetened. I also used light brown sugar and King Arthur Flour's espresso powder. Check out my King Arthur Flour Favorites post. I talk about many of the cocoas I use as well as the espresso powder. If you loved the way your cookies turned out, I wouldn't worry about color. I'm not sure how dark yours turned out, but I would think a darker cocoa would have the most significant effect on color, though dark brown sugar could also affect it. I wasn't looking for a dark color or too deep of a chocolate flavor for the cookies. I didn't want the first thing you thought of when you bit into it was, ooh...chocolate cookie! I wanted the flavor to be mellow so that the coffee flavor took first place. That's why I used a smaller amount of cocoa and I didn't use any dark cocoas. I hope this helps!

Kankana

Thursday 25th of January 2018

I don't think these will last very long in the jar. Such amazing flavor combo and coffee ... yum!

Ramona

Friday 26th of January 2018

They are really yummy! And, yes, I don't think they'll last long!

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