I grew up making coffee cookies with chocolate chips with my mom regularly. Some of my earliest memories are peeking over our blue counter at bags of flour and sugar. I used to stand on a step stool to reach. And my mom always let me lick the spatula after we were done. I remember the sound of the hand mixer churning. The click of the old metal sifter. The sound of the eggs cracking on the counter. The stream of chocolate chips from a bag into a bowl of dough, clanking on metal. The smells of butter and sugar melting in an oven, peering inside to see them deflate and spread.
Our coffee cookies recipe always started with sugar and butter. We would plug in a hand mixer and beat away at the mixture until creamy and pale yellow. I sometimes snuck a taste of just the sugar and butter, which is surprisingly delicious. Then, we would carefully crack brown eggs on our wooden cutting board. Sometimes the egg whites would drip on the counter. My mom would wipe it up with a paper towel while jokingly roll her eyes at me. The mixer would scream again until the batter turned velvety. Over the years we would freestyle the next part. A splash of vanilla here. Coffee extract. Or a spoonful of Nutella. There was always a unique mocha undertone that I loved about her chocolate chip cookies.
My Favorite Classic Coffee Cookies
She would sift the flour and baking soda and salt and a little cocoa onto a piece of parchment paper. Then, she would hoist the mix back into the sifter and sift it again. The old metal crank handle sifter was my favorite thing. It was hard on your wrist after a while, squeezing the old rusty trigger, so we eventually just banged on it like a drum to get the flour through.
Right before the mixture was cohesive, we would stop the mixer and pour an entire bag of semi-sweet chips into a bowl of flour. She’d toss them around lightly and then beat them into the coffee cookie dough. I would always sneak a pinch of the batter. My mom would pour 5-10 chips on the counter to eat when the cookies went in the oven and we’d sneak one at a time when the other wasn’t looking.
Coffee Cookies the size of my head
To scoop, we used our old, red-handled ice cream scoop. Something you’d see at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. A trigger handle that jams and desperately needs some grease. We would groan and squeeze and finally end up with huge balls of cookie dough. 4-5 on each sheet only, because they were so big. We would pop them in the oven and scoop the rest of dough onto another sheet, ready to go in the small oven after.
When the coffee cookies came out, I would hover around the oven with excitement. The house would fill with the smell of butter and sugar and melted chocolate. The finished cookies were gigantic. Our philosophy was definitely go big or go home. I would stare at them and wait impatiently for my mom to grab a spatula and scrape one onto a napkin. Then, I would race into the living room with my warm napkin and cookie and dive in. The chocolate would melt on my fingers and I would scarf the thing down as fast as I could. Always going back for a second.
Good hot or cold
These were the creme de la creme of my mom’s cooking throughout my childhood, and they became pretty famous at school. We didn’t make them all the time, but we always would make them for my teachers gifts at the end of the school year. And I’d like to think mocha chocolate chip cookies are always the favorite gift. Who wants an apple, or a mug? My teachers would actually ask for them after a few years because they were so good. And I don’t blame them.
When I went to college, my mom would bake them for my roommates and I. We would keep them in our mini fridge freezer for the semester and try to thaw them on long nights, but I always would eat them cold after being unable to wait. And somehow they’re just as good cold! Perhaps my favorite memory was when I came home from 3 months in Southeast Asia after studying abroad. My parents picked me up at the airport and I ran down the stairs with my hiking pack, hugging them both tightly. We sat in the car at the airport for a good half hour instead of leaving so that I could eat multiple cookies from the plate she had prepared, and it was heavenly.
I always thought the recipe was top secret, or that my mom created it herself with years of diligent testing and practice. It turns out, the best mocha chocolate chip cookies recipe was on the back of the Tollhouse bag the entire time.
Check out my chocolate chip cookie watercolor prints + cards on Etsy!
My Mom’s Classic Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter softened
- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup chocolate hazelnut spread
- 1 tbsp strong coffee
- 2 1/4 cups AP flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 cups dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375° F.
- In a stand mixer beat together the butter and sugars for about 5 minutes.
- Add eggs (one at a time), vanilla, chocolate hazelnut spread, and coffee, and mix until smooth.
- In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until a dough forms.
- Add in the chocolate chips and mix.
- Scoop 4 large cookies at a time onto a parchment-lined baking sheet with at least an inch of space between each.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden brown.
Notes
- If your butter is too firm to use, you can melt it and let it re-harden until soft. Or you can grate it on a cheese grater before mixing.
- Good vanilla is always worth it!
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