Chocolate-Espresso Snowcap Cookies

It has been so cold out these past few days.  We're talking finger-numbingly, nose-runningly cold, to the point where I have avoided leaving the house unless absolutely necessary.  To add insult to injury, it snowed today.  In situations like these, I find it very helpful to bake- I end up with something sweet to eat while loping around the house in about 3 sweatshirts, and I get warmth from the oven.  Win-win situation.

Taking inspiration from the snow, I made snowcap cookies.  These chocolately, melt-in-your-mouth cookies get their name from the fact they are rolled in powdered sugar and end up looking like they have snow on them after they are baked.  Luckily, unlike snow, they are warm and comforting, making them a fitting treat for a snowy day.  Plus it's Friday, and everyone should be able to have cookies on Friday.

Pre-baking.  It's like snow in your oven!

These cookies are pretty easy to make and end up looking cool without too much effort.  They aren't too sweet but have a deep chocolate flavor, thanks to the addition of the espresso.  By the way, I know it's pronounced eSSSpresso, but I still pronounce it eXpresso.  It sounds too pompous the other way- judge me as you will.  Speaking of judging me, the original recipe is from the Martha Stewart website- you can find it here.  That is all.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 teaspoons instant espresso
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or Smartbalance
2/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
4 ounces melted semi-sweet chocolate, or bittersweet chocolate if you're more into that kinda thing
1 tablespoon milk or soy milk
Confectioner's sugar, for coating

Directions:

1. Beat together the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add in the egg.
2. Melt the chocolate.  Once it's melted, let it cool for a bit (not to the point of re-hardening, of course) before adding it to the mixture.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, espresso, baking powder, and salt.
4. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
5. Add in the milk until just combined.
6. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and pop it in the freezer for about 45 min.  Don't skip this step!  The dough is beautifully light and fluffy, but soft- it needs to be frozen to hold its shape later on.  Geez, just go play in the snow or drink some hot chocolate or something.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  While the oven is pre-heating, put some powdered sugar in a bowl and line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.
8.  Take the dough out of the freezer.  Roll the dough into balls, coat them thoroughly with powdered sugar (roll them twice if necessary), and put them onto the baking sheet.  Make sure they have space to expand!  Take note: do this all quickly.  If the dough starts getting soft and impossible to roll, pop it back in the freezer for a bit.  Coating your hands in powdered sugar will also temporarily help the dough not stick to your hands.
9. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the cookies have spread and the sugar coating has cracked.  When you take them out of the oven they will still be very soft, but they'll harden up a bit when they cool.  This means you have to let them sit for a little before taking them off the pan or, if you have no self control like me, it just means you will be eating a fresh-out-of-the-oven but very broken cookie.

Post-baking, when they were still too hot and crumbly to move so I definitely didn't eat them yet.  On a completely unrelated note, please don't look at the piece of cookie in the upper left corner and wonder what happened to the other half.  Because I definitely didn't break off a piece and eat it, and then eat the other half as soon as I took the picture.  Nope, I wouldn't do that.

Two last mini-rants about these cookies.  First, I just realized that I forgot to add the baking powder.  Oops.  I thought they looked a little flat.  Don't be like me.  They still taste good, but they'll be a little puffier if you actually add in all the necessary ingredients.  Second, I made these cookies with a friend a while back, and added caramels to the center as we rolled the cookie dough balls.  The cookies ended up in various states of disarray, oozing caramel in sometimes appetizing and sometimes not-so-appetizing ways, but they did taste really good.  If you just want delicious cookies and you're not worried about aesthetics I would say try the caramel thing, but if you're bringing these cookies somewhere and want them to look nice, well, don't say I didn't warn you.

Enjoy!