Imagine living in a suburb of Washington, DC, and suddenly another Dutch food writer moves in practically next door. What a coincidence! Dosia Brewer and I were neighbors for one year. Our kids went to the same schools, we drank coffee and our families had some great dinners together. Of course we also chatted a lot about food. Dosia writes cookbooks and recipes for Dutch magazines, and after she’d moved back to Amsterdam, she started a delicious food blog: cookiecompanion. Yes, it’s all about cookies. Every week Dosia posts traditional and original cookies from around the world, in both English and Dutch. Today we share her version of the American Chocolate Chip Cookie. She adds ground coffee, chopped rosemary and some dried cherries. We immediately started baking and were sold by this unexpected but extraordinary twist. Simply irresistible!
Makes about 25 cookies
6 oz / 170 g unsalted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz/ 110 g (dark) demerara sugar
3.5 oz/ 100 g caster sugar
1 egg
9 oz / 250 g all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
10 coffee beans
1.5 oz/ 40 g dried cherries
1 sprig of rosemary, plus extra for garnish
3 oz/ 75 grams chocolate chips, plus extra for garnish
Extra: stick (hand) blender, pestle & mortar, baking paper, ice-cream scoop
1. Melt the butter. Leave to cool slightly and mix in the vanilla extract, the demerara sugar, and the caster sugar. Mix in the egg and whizz with a stick blender until creamy.
2. In a large bowl mix the flour with the baking powder and the salt. Chop the rosemary. Roughly grind the coffee beans with a pestle and mortar. Chop the cherries. Stir the butter mixture in the flour mixture and then stir in the chocolate chips, the rosemary, the coffee, and the cherries. Leave to set in the fridge for about an hour. Don’t skip this step. The dough really has to be firm before you put the cookies in the oven. If not, you will end up with pathetic thin monsters instead of cookies with body and the right chewy consistency.
3. Preheat the oven to 165°C (330 °F). Line a baking tray with baking paper.
4. Scoop little balls of about 35 grams with an ice-cream scoop and put the on the baking tray. Leave enough room for the cookies to spread. I usually do not put more than 6 cookies at a time on the baking tray. Put a few extra chocolate chips on the dough, garnish with some rosemary needles, and bake in the middle of the oven for 10-15 minutes. The edges will colour a bit, but the middle of the cookie will still be slightly pale. Don’t bake these cookies too long, because they will turn out rock hard instead of chewy.
5. Take the cookies from the oven and leave to cool on the baking tray. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.