Chocolate Chip-Espresso-Cinnamon Cookies

I love the combination of chocolate & cinnamon. I also love the combination of chocolate & coffee. If you combine chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon - ohhhh I am a happy, happy person!

I have been collecting recipes from magazines for about 10 years now. I have many dessert recipes that call for 'instant espresso powder' - cookies, biscotti, creme brulee, cheesecake, pudding - lots of recipes that I've never tried. I could never find instant espresso powder in the grocery store, never saw it in Williams-Sonoma or The Gourmet Chef. This past holiday season, SP found it in the Strip. I was so excited when he came home with it. I can now indulge myself and make all those fabulous sounding dessert recipes I cut out and saved.

So far, we've used it to make Cappuccino Pizzelles and Cappuccino Biscotti. Last weekend, we made Chocolate Chip Cookies with Espresso & Cinnamon.I know this recipe is from Bon Appetit, probably from an issue in 2002, but I cannot find it at bonappetit.com or at epicurious.com. I googled it and found the recipe at recipezarr.com.

These are basically chocolate chip cookies with instant espresso powder and cinnamon added.

2.25 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
1.5 cups packed golden brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
4 tsp instant espresso powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 (6 oz) package semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
1 (6 oz) package milk chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped

While SP was showering, I gathered all the ingredients.It turns out we didn't have milk chocolate chips. Instead, I used up a bag of dark chocolate chips (about a half a cup) and used semi-sweet chips for the other 1.5 cups. I tossed in an extra handful of chips for good measure. We left out the walnuts since I don't really like nuts in my cookies.

Things started smelling yummy as soon as I whisked together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mmmm cinnamon. SP used the mixer to combine the sugar, butter, egg, espresso powder, and vanilla. Mmmm espresso smell. He beat in the dry ingredients and stirred in the chips. The dough was so tasty that I was even sampling the raw cookie dough, something I never do.I got to use the cookie dough scoop and scoop onto the parchment lined cookie sheets. We don't have non-stick vegetable oil spray, so instead of coating the cookie sheets with a spray, we lined them with parchment paper.While I was scooping, SP made us latte treats. He got a little creative with his and tried to show off his barista skills. I'm not sure if it looks like Mickey Mouse with his ears severed/shooting off his head or if it looks like "Oh Noooooo" Mr. Bill:As these baked the house started to smell just as yummy and comforting as when we made the Cappuccino Biscotti. They bake for about 14 minutes at 350.These turned out terrific! Naturally, we immediately sampled one each. Or maybe 2 each. Maybe even 3 each. There's something about warm chocolate chips cookies, especially ones with espresso & cinnamon.