I’m looking at making a chocolate/coffee cookie recipe that call for 2c. chopped chocolate-covered espresso beans as an add in at the end. While I’m sure it’s delicious, it’s also too dang expensive for me to go for. What would you recommend I substitute? There are already chocolate chips in the recipe. I was thinking about using a combination of chips and cocoa nibs. Any other ideas?
Is the ultimate result of the recipe dependent on the taste of coffee? I might add as least a few sprinkles of crunchy instant coffee or espresso. I don’t know if they still make it. If you can find an affordable chocolate bar with espresso, might try chopping up that.
[Edited to add: I was thinking of freeze-dried coffee.)
Might work to roll softened chips in instant coffee powder and ground nibs, like teeny truffles.
Also, you might get best answers if you linked or summarized the recipe, so people have an idea of whether the espresso beans are a topping or a mixed-in ingredient.
I thought I was clear that the beans are a mixed-in, in addition to chocolate chips, but I guess I wasn’t
I think I may still have some freeze-dried coffee around. I keep it specifically for baking but I like your idea of “mini-truffles.” Very cute.
I don’t believe the recipe is on line, but it’s pretty much a fudgy chocolate cookie with strong coffee overtones coming from Kahlua and espresso powder in the recipe. The coffee beans serve to boost the coffee flavor and add texture.
If it’s important to you to maintain the texture of the recipe you’re using, I believe you could just chop up some coffee beans and slightly increase the amount of chocolate. Otherwise, just add some instant coffee/espresso granules.
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I think the nibs are a good idea for crunch. Or you could do crushed coffee beans and a few more chocolate chips.
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Yes, I think others probably understood you well. I don’t know why my initial picture of the recipe was that it was more like a bar cookie, baked in a rectengular pan, with the chopped C-C espresso beans added as the last ingredient on the top, like a crumble crust.
But now I agree with graygarious to just chop up beans and add to that an amount of chopped chocolate that would be pretty much equal to what a chocolate covering for the beans would have amounted to (not very much).
By the way, 2 cups of chopped espresso beans in addition to espresso powder in the dough mix is a lot of buzz!
Just to follow up…I ended up taking about 1/4 c. cocoa nibs, 1 c. coffee beans, and 3/4 c. chocolate chips and tossing them into the food processor to chop roughly. I used the cocoa nibs largely because I wanted to finish out the small amount I had left in the bag. On the whole, I think the substitution worked well.
On the first bite, I wasn’t too sure I liked the cookies all that well. They quickly became addictive, though. I don’t think it was the coffee beans as they were decaf. Maybe it was all the other coffee and chocolate stuff in there.
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