Last Sunday was one of those perfectly lazy days and also one of those days where I chose to ignore things that needed to be done.  One of those things was my writing class assignment, which for some reason I was in complete denial of doing.  I had to write a pitch letter to an editor on a food story idea.  I just had no idea what to write or indeed what to write about.  I procrastinated!

I joined my friends Stacey and her husband Eric for lunch at their house along with our other friend Kathryn.  Lunch was an amazing, absolutely delicious Caramelized Five Onion Soup with Cheesy Crusty Bread – homemade!  I put my feet up on their comfy sofa and procrastinated some more only this time out loud to my friends.  When I was sure they absolutely could not take any more of me, Stacey announced, “who wants to make cookies?”

Our next stop was Stacey’s kitchen where we donned festive hats and had some fun preparing the final stages Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps.

Now, I am not a big cookie fan, but these little scrumptious numbers had me changing my mind a little.

Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps
(Makes 18-24)

Ingredients

½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 teaspoon instant espresso
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoon unsalted butter
⅔ cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
4oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon milk
confections’ sugar for coating

Directions

In a medium bowl, sift together flour cocoa, espresso, baking powder, and salt.  With an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until well combined; mix in cooled chocolate. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture; beat in milk until just combined. Flatten dough into a disk; wrap in plastic. Freeze until firm, about 45 minutes, or stick in fridge over night.

 
 
Stacey had made all the preparations for the dough the evening before and left it in the freezer overnight. 

Preheat over to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Pour confections’ sugar (about ½ cup) into a medium bowl; working in batches, roll balls in sugar two times, letting them sit in sugar between coatings.

Place on prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies have spread and coating has cracked, 12 to 14 minutes; cookies will still be soft to the touch. Cool cookies on wire rack.

 

Note: Roll each ball in confections’ sugar twice to make sure it’s thoroughly coated and no dark dough is visible. Cookies will keep for us to a week stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

I did eventually submit my assignment very late on Monday evening (the witching hour) and am still waiting for feedback.  Hopefully, it wont be too awful.