Chocolate Espresso Cookies from A Farm Girl's Dabbles

Chocolate Espresso Cookies - made dough August 26, 2023 from A Farm Girl's Dabbles 

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

5 tablespoons maple syrup

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

brown or white sugar, for rolling

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together melted butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add maple syrup, egg and vanilla, beating on medium speed until combined.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture on low speed in two additions, beating after each addition until just combined. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover and chill for an hour or longer.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Roll chilled dough balls in brown sugar or granulated sugar, coating completely. Evenly space on baking sheets, leaving 2 inches apart.
5. Bake 9-11 minutes or until tops are puffed and cracked. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets.

At first glance (and second and third), you can tell this was a cookie fail. The cookies spread too much and are misshapen because they baked right into each other as they spread. From their appearance, you can immediately tell there isn't enough flour.

But what I'm not sure of is whether the recipe doesn't call for enough flour or if I simply didn't add the right amount it called for. When I make cookie dough, I typically whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl as part of my mise en place. But since I'd been going through a period of flat cookies, I've taken to going by appearance of the dough. Sometimes that calls for withholding some flour and other times for adding more. But when you combine all the dry ingredients together in one bowl, you can't as easily withhold the flour since it's all mixed in with the leavenings and salt.

So my seemingly brilliant solution is to mix all the dry ingredients except the last 1/4-1/2 cup of flour, to be added at the end only if the dough seems sticky and needs more flour. Good idea, right? Welp, it is if you don't forget to add the flour you originally withheld. My problem with this one is I genuinely can't tell you if I did withhold the flour and forgot to add all of it in or if I did measure correctly and the recipe just needs more flour. Mine looks nothing like they're supposed to from A Farm Girl Dabble's blog. Her cookies look perfect. Mine, not so much. 

The first bakes are pictured above, all baked from frozen dough. Fortunately, with the remaining (frozen) cookie dough balls (pictured below), I tried the trick of rounding the cookies with a large round cookie cutter as soon as they came out of the oven so the edges smooth out into the circular shape the cookies are supposed to be. Wow, it actually worked. Except for the one below in the top left. That was my trial run and I didn't quite get all the edges inside the cookie cutter when I was swirling. But hey. it worked on the other ones. Believe it or not, the ones below came out of the oven almost as rough looking and misshapen as the ones above. But capturing each misshapen cookie inside a larger round cookie cutter and swirling immediately after you take them out of the oven while they're still hot got them into shape.

From a flavor perspective, the chocolate and espresso weren't particularly strong. Instead the butter and greasy texture (due to not having enough flour) took over the flavor profile and texture. It wasn't bad but I think it could've been better. Next time I need to pay more attention and make sure I add the right amount of flour.