Salted Dark Chocolate Espresso Cookies.

If you have never baked something from here before....maybe you just stop by to hear my hilARious prose and anecdotes about the weather and running around North Fife like a crazy person, and that's ok, but some times I find things that are just so delicious and easy and CHOCOLATEY that I reaaaaallly want you to share it with me....so if you've never baked something from here before, heck maybe you've never baked anything from anywhere before, you MUST (yes, I know you love it when I am masterful) make these beauties.

Don't let the 'salted' thing fool you into thinking they are somehow too fancy for a non-baker, it means 'sprinkling over some salt'...not fancy. Same with the espresso thing, leave that part out if it bothers you...the taste isn't overly strong anyway.

What is strong however, is the craaaaazy deep dark taste and bitter sweet squodge of goodgood dark chocolate. No cocoa , just full on, almost 300g worth of chocolatechocolatechocolateeyness. And what that means is that while these have the bendy middle of cutey cookies; you know, the milk and cookies thing that is oh so American to us Brits, they actually have the air of something a million times more sophisticated than anything you'd have with milk and feed to a child.

These are definitely dessert suitable cookies, maybe next to ice cream or with coffee if you're one of those 60's housewives that really does throw dinner parties (can I come?). So go forth non-bakers and bake, and already-bakers, I knew the title alone would persuade you. With Love and Cake.

Salted Dark Chocolate Espresso Cookies.

Adapted from Desserts for Breakfast.

A few notes:

• Instant espresso powder is not the same as instant coffee....you'll find it in the same supermarket aisle but do make sure it's espresso powder.
• The recipe I originally came across uses smoked sea salt. While I'd like to try that version too, I felt that these might have enough flavour going on for that sort of thing so I went for lovely pure Cornish Sea Salt. They do do a smoked version should you fancy giving it a try though, as do Maldon, which I've seen in several supermarkets.
• Excuse the weird measurements here; as is often the case, it's because the recipe was originally measured in American cups.

Makes 

You will need

2xbaking sheets, lined (or bake in batches)

284g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

53g butter

2 eggs

267g caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

43g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

sea salt for topping

• Melt 170g of the chocolate with the butter, either in a microwave or double boiler, so it is smooth and glossy.
• In a nice big mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, espresso powder and vanilla extract for a few minutes (I used an electric hand whisk) until pale coffee coloured and increased in volume.
• Fold through the flour, baking powder, pinch of salt and melted chocolate in batches, followed by the rest of the chocolate chunks.
• Chill the mixture in the fridge for 1 hour (or freezer for 30 minutes) to firm up.
• Preheat the oven to 180°c.
• Pop heaped dessert spoonfuls of dough onto your baking sheets, leaving a few centimetres gap for spreading.
• Sprinkle a little bit of salt on top of each ball of dough.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes until spread out and crackly looking but still squishy in the middle.
• Leave the cookies to firm up on the baking trays for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Eat and swoon.