Cappuccino Royales - The Sequel

Novel: Key Lime Pie Murder

Author: Joanne Fluke

At the request of the colleague I mentioned in my previous post about this buzz-worthy recipe, I made another batch of Cappuccino Royales.  Normally, I wouldn't write a second post about a recipe; however I just had to share some of the enhancements I tried with this second round.


First off, I had a trusty assistant working with me this time, my BFF, Melissa.  With her encouragement, I decided to bake the entire batch rather than half of the batch as I did last time.  Remember, the full recipe calls for three cups of granulated sugar, four sticks of butter and three cups of milk chocolate chips.  In addition, it calls for 1/4 cup of instant coffee granules.  As in my previous attempt at baking these cookies, I substituted Starbucks Via Ready Brew Coffee for the Folgers Instant Coffee listed in the recipe.  We used 13 packets of the Starbucks Via to get a 1/4 cup.  I forgot that the Starbucks is much stronger tasting than Folgers, so you can imagine the intense coffee flavor in these cookies.  Definitely take Joanne's advice and roll the cookie dough in white sugar before baking.

Cookie dough before rolling in to balls.

The second change we made was in the size of the rolled balls of dough.  The recipe calls for walnut-sized balls of dough to be placed on greased cookie sheets.  I don't regular eat walnuts and when I do, it's usually after they've been shelled and roasted with sugar and cinnamon!  So, it was hard for me to figure out what size the balls should be.  In the previous attempt, I used my trusty 2-tablespoon cookie scoop and I think the dough balls were too big.  The cookies spread out and became quite thin, leading to dry cookies.  This time, we made the balls using the scoop and then cut each ball in half and then re-shaped them in to balls.  The resulting cookies were the perfect size:

The cookies on the left are half-the size and have a better texture than the cookies on the right which were made using the 2-tablespoon cookie scoop.

In the future, I plan on purchasing a smaller cookie scoop for these cookies as well as other recipes in Joanne Fluke's collection that call for "walnut-sized" cookies.


As you can imagine, Melissa and I were pretty tired and quite buzzed by the time we made our 6th out of 12 dozen cookies.  We're pretty sure that we were on a coffee "high" when we were inspired to try these cookies in a brownie format.  We placed the remaining dough in an 8"X8", greased, glass pan and sprinkled white chocolate and milk chocolate chips on top.  

Cappuccino Royale Brownie

We baked it at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  We haven't tried the finished product yet - we wanted to be able to get some sleep last night!  We went to bed at midnight and neither of us could fall asleep until well past 1am.  I'll add a comment to this post once we try the brownie.  I see another long night ahead!

Mmmmm... White Chocolate and Cinnamon

Novel: Carrot Cake Murder
Author: Joanne Fluke


Within the first ten pages of this cozy mystery, Ms. Fluke introduces what has become my favorite recipes of the entire series.  Hannah Swenson, owner of the Cookie Jar bakery makes a batch of these delightful cookies from a friend's family recipe.  They're called Viking cookies and unlike their name, have a delicate, sweet taste.


The main ingredients are white chocolate chips, rolled oats, cinnamon and nutmeg (although Hannah says that the cookies taste better when you substitute cardamom for the nutmeg).  I usually prefer milk chocolate over white chocolate, but I have to say that the white chocolate chips match the subtlety of the rolled oats and slight spices beautifully.  

Again, this was a huge recipe.  It called for 4 sticks of butter, 2 cups of white sugar, and 2 cups of brown sugar.  I cut the recipe in half and made 4 dozen cookies.  After tasting the first cookie, I wished I had made the entire batch!  I went ahead and substituted nutmeg for the cardamom because that's what I had in the pantry.  I think the cookies still tasted wonderful.


It's been a few hours since I baked the cookies and they are starting to get crunchier with time.  My husband and mother-in-law love really crunchy cookies and I think they'll come to love these.  I look forward to dipping these in my morning coffee - what a way to start the day!

Coffee & Chocolate - How Could I Go Wrong?

Novel: Key Lime Pie Murder
Author: Joanne Fluke


It's August in Las Vegas which means it's Monsoon Season.  For tropical locales, monsoon season would means days where the skies could open at any minute and unleash beautiful, threatening, torrential downpours.  Here in the desert southwest, it means that we have a few weeks of slight humidity and beautiful lightning shows that produce just enough rain to dot your just-washed car with dust rings.


We had a spectacular lightning show last night and the air definitely smelled like we might get some measurable rain.  It was almost perfect weather to curl up with a great mystery and an iced cup of joe (it's still 100+ degrees here!).  With my eReader in one hand and my drink in another, I read about Hannah Swensen's latest cookie creation, Cappuccino Royales.  They're a coffee flavored cookie with milk chocolate chips and they sounded perfect for an evening listening to thunder, watching lighting, and curling up with a good book.

Cappuccino Royales with my favorite coffee cup!

The recipe is HUGE.  It calls for an entire pound of butter, three cups of sugar and three eggs.  It says it will produce 12 dozen cookies.  Although I love coffee and chocolate, there's just no way I could polish off that many cookies!  I cut the recipe in half and made about 6 dozen cookies.  I've shared them with the usual suspects - my co-workers, family and friends.  I also substituted Starbucks' Via packets for the Folger's Instant Coffee - it was what I had on hand and I think it turned out well. The cookies are a little on the dry side for me, but the coffee flavor is definitely pronounced.  I think I'll like these best by dipping them in milk.  

Taking Off For Two Weekends

It's been a crazy week - much drama at work (see my other blog about working in Paradise).  Although I often find baking/cooking to be relaxing, I decided not to try any new recipes this week.  I needed the time to relax.  I was able to finish the first book in a new culinary mystery, Cooking Up Murder (A Cooking Class Mystery).

It took me a while to get in to the book, but I think that has more to do with the fact that it's the first book in long time that I have not read on my Sony eReader.  It's hard going back to paper!  I loaned my reader to my father-in-law and just got it back.  Can't wait to jump in to another book.  I'll definitely add the Cooking Class Mysteries to my "To Read Book List".  I'm really enjoying the light-hearted mystery with the touch of romance.

I'm going to also take the following weekend off for a family vacation.  In the meantime, explore the books I've listed, try some of the recipes and feel free to share your experiences in the comments section.

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

Novel: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen, #1)

Author: Joanne Fluke
It's the recipe that started it all.  From the first book in the series, this is an unusual Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It gets its "crunch" from crushed corn flakes.  I like my cookies soft and somewhat chewy.  These cookies are definitely crunchy and somewhat on the chewy side. My husband and his mother LOVE crunchy cookies and so I hope that they'll love these.

Here's what the batter looked like just before I mixed in the crushed corn flakes. 

Per Joanne's recipe, I only crushed the corn flakes by hand, just before adding them to the bowl. I wouldn't recommend pulverizing them or you'd lose the crunch factor.

Surprisingly, the corn flakes didn't make too much of a difference in the batter and didn't show up much as I placed the balls of batter on the cookie sheets.

I've tried one other cookie recipe from the Hannah Swensen series and it was an utter disaster. The cookies spread out way too much and didn't cook completely through. I was afraid of the same result with this recipe, so I followed Joanne's advice and reduced my oven's temperature to 350 degrees and did not flatten them. I baked the cookies for 10 minutes and took them out of the oven just as the bottom of the cookies were starting to brown.

I'm pretty happy with the finished product and will definitely add this recipe to my regular file.