Chocolate Chip Cookies are some of the tastiest, most satisfying and easy thing to bake. There are plenty of recipes to make them at home, but I love this one which incorporates crushed coffee beans, adding texture and flavour to the cookies.
The recipe for these Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coffee Beans is featured in the wonderful At Home – Middle Eastern recipes from our kitchen cookbook written by Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer. Itamar and Sarit are the founders of Honey & Co., a tiny restaurant serving traditional middle eastern food in London. The couple hails from Israel, but have made London their home. They have published two other cookbooks and also own a larger restaurant called Honey & Smoke. If you are looking for fantastic food in London, you have to try theirs!
At Home is full of wonderful recipes to cook for different occasions: quick and hearty comfort food, but also sophisticated dishes for special occasions. Recipes that you can cook in your home kitchen every day as a single person or a couple; and recipes to impress your family or a group of friends at the next dinner party.
All the recipes in this cookbook are quick and simple and you will want to make them over and over again. I love baking, so most of the recipes I have tried from the book so far have been sweets (one of my favourites are the Marunchinos almond macaroons). Itamar’s and Sarit’s genius comes out in their savoury recipes, so I highly recommend you make dishes like BBQ aubergine with jewelled rice salad, Cauliflower salad with amba pickle & tahini or Fish pastilla with leek & preserved lemons.
What I love about this chocolate chip cookie recipe in particular is that it is packed with crushed coffee beans (rather than incorporating coffee in liquid form as in other recipes). Therefore the cookies have a uniquely strong taste of coffee and I almost feel energised when I eat them! I also love feeling the tiny coffee bean crumbs in my mouth as I munch on the cookie.
Ingredients
Makes around 20 cookies.
- 125g unsalted butter
- 220g dark brown sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 280g self-raising flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 150g milk chocolate
- 25g good quality coffee beans, crushed
Preparation
Cream the butter with the sugar using a large wooden spoon or an electric mixer with a paddle attachment until it’s all creamy, but not too fluffy. Add the egg and beat until fully combined. Add the flour, salt, milk chocolate and crushed coffee beans. Beat together to combine to an even dough.
Divide the cookie dough in two parts. Shape the dough into a log shape, roughly 5cm thick (try to get these logs as round as possible). Wrap the logs of dough in clingfilm and refrigerate until firm, for at least 1 hour. You can make and freeze the dough well in advance to bake when needed.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Using a thin sharp knife, slice the cookies into rounds (about 4mm thick) and place them on the baking tray with plenty of space between them, as they will spread quite a bit.
Cook in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes. Open the oven and rotate the tray for an even bake, then set a timer for another 5 minutes. The cookies should have spread and turned a light golden colour, but they will still feel soft. Let them set on the tray before serving.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Note: I adapted the recipe to shape the dough in logs to refrigerate and then slice before baking; whereas the original recipe says to make the cookies by rolling a scoop of dough in your hands. The different method doesn’t change the taste of the cookies; I just like slicing the cookies as I think you get a more neat end result!
