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These Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies have delicious coffee notes that complement the dark chocolate chunks. These cookies are chewy, soft and deliciously rich, topped with flaky sea salt. They’re a departure from the traditional cc cookies (similar to these Miso Chocolate Chip Cookies).
What Are Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Say no to instant espresso. For the record I think instant espresso is really delicious in, like, a chocolate cake. You don’t taste it, it’s just there to accentuate the chocolate flavor. But in this cookie, it was a really overpowering flavor and it wasn’t a good one.
Instant espresso powder doesn’t yield a delicious cup of espresso. I don’t think any of us are surprised by that.
Use Good Quality of Espresso and/or Coffee
Ok, so REALLY good espresso is expensive. It can sometimes be, like, $15 a bag. I tested this with Allegro coffee brand of espresso and I didn’t even buy an entire bag. I bought a half bag, which made it around $5. WIN! If you buy fancy espresso grounds, use those! But I figured it’d be kinda silly to spend a lot of money on awesome espresso to only use it for this recipe.
How to Incorporate Coffee and/or Espresso Into a Chocolate Chip Cookie
The butter is melted and then the espresso grounds are steeped in it, creating a buttery espresso mixture. I then just ran it through a fine mesh strainer. You may be tempted to run it through a coffee filter but this will NOT work. Butter is too thick. We found out the hard way so don’t do it!
We also added a bit of espresso grounds to the dry ingredients so it looked more espresso-like.
The coffee/espresso flavor is not overpowering but it’s there and it works with the chocolate so well. It’s totally delicious. WE LOVE IT!! I hope you love these espresso/coffee chocolate chip cookies as much as I do!
How to Make Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Melt butter. And then turn off the heat.
- Pour in the espresso and give it a mix until all of the granules are coated in the butter. Cover the saucepan and let it steep; this is really going to give us that deep espresso/coffee flavor.
- Pour the butter through a fine mesh strainer and press the coffee granules so it releases as much of the melted butter as possible. If it’s a particularly cold day, and the butter may have solidified, reheat the butter just until it’s melted.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients. We have all-purpose flour, espresso grounds (just a teeny bit), baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Beat together the espresso butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla.
- Pour in the dry ingredients and mix just until the speckles of flour have disappeared.
- Add the chocolate chips and mix.
- Chill the dough in the fridge. Why do we chill dough in the fridge, you ask? Well, we do it because if we bake it right away, they’ll bake flatter. If the dough is SUPER cold, they may not spread.
- Scoop out cookie dough balls. I like to scoop everything all at once, put them on a baking sheet and bake them from there. It means that I can clean up while I’m baking the cookies.
- Bake the cookie dough. I like to bake about 8 at a time. And then continue baking the batches of cookies until you’ve worked your way through the cookie dough.
- Sprinkle the tops with flaky sea salt. And serve.
- If you want to freeze them and bake them up later, I have a whole post on that giving detailed instructions.Â
More Cookie Recipes That I Love
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Sesame Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies
- Iced Oatmeal Cookies
- Strawberry and Cream Cookies
- Berry Crinkle Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you tried this Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Equipment
- 1 stainless steel bowl
- 1 silicon spatula
Ingredients
Espresso Butter Mixture:
- 1 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup espresso grounds
Dry Mix:
- 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon espresso grounds
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Wet Mix:
- 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 12 ounces dark chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Large flakes of salt, such as Maldon or Jacobson
Instructions
To Make the Espresso Butter Mixture:
- To a medium saucepan, set over medium heat, add the butter. When the butter has melted, turn off the heat. Stir in the espresso and mix until it’s covered in the butter. Cover the saucepan and allow to steep for 20 minutes. When it’s done, pour it through a fine mesh strainer, into a large bowl OR the bowl of a stand-up mixer.
- Discard the used up espresso grounds. Set aside.
To Make the Dry Mix:
- To a medium bowl, whisk the flour, espresso grounds, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
To Make the Wet Mix:
- Grab the large bowl OR the bowl of a stand-up mixer (using the paddle attachment) with the melted/espresso butter in it. To that bowl, add the brown sugar and white sugar. Beat together until nice and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, until combined. Pour in the vanilla extract and beat once more.
- In one batch, add the flour. You will probably have to lift up the head part of your mixer to be able to add it all at once. Cover the mixer with a clean kitchen towel and turn it on low speed. Mix until the flour is mostly combined and then increase speed until you no longer see any flecks of flour. Pour in the chocolate chunks and mix one last time. Transfer the dough to the fridge to chill for an hour or up to 2 days.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop out balls of dough. If it’s super chilled, you may need to push some dough into the scoop so it’s nice and compact and then release the lever. I like to add all the balls of cookie dough to a sheet of parchment versus scooping dough, as I bake.
- Transfer 6 to 7 balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing them a part because these do spread. Place in the oven and bake for about 7 to 8 minutes. If the dough is super cold, it may need up to 10 minutes to bake. They should be light to medium golden brown. Sprinkle with a few pinches of salt upon exiting the oven. Repeat until you’ve baked all the cookies.
- To freeze, add the cookie dough balls to a baking sheet and stick in the freezer until very cold, about 20 minutes and then transfer to a freezer-safe plastic bag.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Love it. Easy, fail proof and extremely yummy! Absolute crowd pleaser! Already made it twice in just one week. Thanks for sharing.
Hello,
Just made these cookies. They were dry and did not spread just stayed in ball form. Followed exact instructions. What happened?
I used medium sized cookie scoopers, but they baked larger and longer than the description. DO you know why? Regardless, i love this recipe the FLAVOUR IS AMAZING!
hmm i’m not sure. perhaps the cookie dough wasn’t chilled? that’s my only guess. glad they were still amazing!
Just made these cookies two days ago and froze half of the dough. But they’re so GOOD I’m baking the frozen half today. Any tips on baking the frozen dough?
Oh amazing! When you bake them from frozen, they’ll most likely need an additional 2 to 3 minutes on top of the regular bake time. 🙂
So simple! Thanks!
These cookies are amazing, beautiful flavours but the baking time is off. I used medium cookie scoops and the cookies were in the oven between 12-15 minutes. Nonetheless, the espresso butter is an amazing flavour and adds many dimensions to these cookies!
YAY! Love hearing this!
When using espresso powder, how much should be used in this recipe?
not sure–didn’t test it that way–sorry!
Made Mine With 1 TBS Instant Espresso in the batter, and a 1/4 cup Strong Cold Brew Coffee in the batter.
Turned out great! Not heavy on the espresso flavor, but a nice rich back note. The brown sugar is the strongest flavor, I added 3 tsp vanilla extract. Used salted butter. 53% cocoa dark chocolate chips. And I topped with big flakes of grey Celtic Sea Salt, yum!
Will be making these again…. but will be making Cold Espresso Shots, similar to making homemade cold brew coffee. The flavors, notes, and temperament of cold brew coffee and espresso are highly consistent and remain constant, as oppose to hot coffee and hot espresso shots. That’s essentially what the espresso butter is doing, is making hot espresso, wondering if cold shots added will be stronger in addition to the instant espresso directly into the batter.
Overall the cookie batter was easy to work with, the cookies puffed up a ton due to the baking soda and powder being equal amounts but as the cookies cooled they deflated to flatter disks. I baked mine for close to the full 10 minutes, even after chilling the dough/batter for an hour it was still soft but I baked them anyway. Baked each round of 6 dough balls for 9-1/2 minutes. I got about 20-30 cookies out of the dough.
Maybe I was making mine slightly bigger, lol.
Hi! I’ve been following your instagram for a very long time now, with great envy of whoever gets to taste test all your creations! I think this will be the first recipe I finally get around to trying. To infuse the espresso into the butter, does it just sit in the butter or should the butter still be on low heat for the whole 20 mins? Thanks!
Sorry just seeing this! You should turn it off the heat completely! 🙂 Let me know how it goes!xo
We love the espresso/chocolate taste! I veganized the recipe by use Earth Balance butter and using 3 flaxseed “eggs” (1 TBS ground golden flaxseed + 3 TBS warm water per “egg”). Also, I found it helpful to take the ice cream scoop of dough and gently press it between my palms to slightly flatten it so that the salt flakes could be spread out more. Also, I put the flakes on before baking. Thanks so much for you and your partner for working on this recipe!
Wonderful! Love that you successfully veganized them!
This recipe is AMAZING. I’ve made it twice now and they’re the best cookies I’ve ever made (and I usually mess up baking!)! Sooooooooooooooo good. And chewy. Omg. Thank you!!
YAY! Love hearing this! 🙂