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.
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:
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.
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!
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!
The brownie was awesome but boy did it keep me awake! I'll definitely bake this again when I'm working on homework. If you're going to hit Black Friday, this brownie would be a perfect way to start your shopping adventure!
ReplyDeleteI made the mistake of using margarine - had to add 2 extra cups of flour to get good consistency. Also missed salt - I think the recipe needs some just to kick up the flavor some more. otherwise very tasty.
ReplyDelete