Coffee Spice Cookies

Coffee Spice Cookies

375°F 

6-8 minutes 
Yield: 5-1/2 dozen cookies

From the book Cookies! A Cookie Lover’s Collection 1995

- 1 tsp instant coffee crystals
- 1 tsp hot water
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp all spice
- 1/3 cup candy sprinkles

1- In small bowl combine coffee crystals and hot water, stir until dissolved.

2- In large mixing bowl, combine coffee, sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

3- Add flour, baking powder allspice, and salt until soft dough forms.

4- Divide dough in half, shape each half into 1-1/2” diameter logs.

5- Roll logs evenly in sprinkles, pressing lightly to coat. 

6- Wrap in plastic wrap or wax paper. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours or until firm.

7- Cut logs into 1/4” slices, place slices 2” apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

8- Bake for 6-8 minutes or until set.

9- Cool completely before storing.

When I was a kid and my grandma would invite me over for a Christmas cookie baking day, she would usually let me pick out the cookies we were doing in advance, that way she could by all of the ingredients. I don’t remember which year we did these for the first time, but I remember that I liked them and I thought they were fun to make. So, these were at the top of my list earlier this year when I was in a cookie baking mood. 

I will admit, it’s currently April 23rd, and I baked these cookies on February 24th. Has it been two months since I’ve worked on my blog already? I guess so. I was feeling very motivated for a while, but it seemed like after the holidays were over, I was quickly running out of recipes and wasn’t sure what to make besides cookies. However, since then I have gotten some more recipes from my aunt and all of the recipes of my grandmas. I have a few exciting things coming up that I can’t wait to make.

I think this recipe was fairly straightforward as far as mixing goes. I mixed the instant coffee with hot water in a shot glass. I creamed together the butter and sugar. Once mixed, I added the coffee and vanilla, and then the egg. The recipe says to mix these all at once, but I find any recipe that tells you to do that is setting you up for disaster. Butter and sugar should almost always be creamed together first before adding additional ingredients like vanilla, or especially eggs. If you dump all of these things in together and mix them at one time, you are going to get clumps of unmixed butter in your cookies, which can lead to them flattening out way too much. 

Once the wet ingredients were mixed, I added the dry ingredients. I measured these into a separate bowl while the butter and sugar were mixing. I slowly added the dry mix into the wet mix, and let it work together just until they were fully incorporated. This batter was very sticky, which had me stressed on if it would roll into a log well. 

The recipe says to divide the dough in half and shape each half into a 1-1/2 inch log. I floured my counter and rolled them out to the closest size I could get to 1-1/2 inch. However, this is really where I messed up. It was necessary to flour the dough to be able to roll it because it was so sticky. When I went to roll them in the sprinkles, the sprinkles weren’t sticking very well due to the extra flour. This lead me to pressing the dough into the sprinkles, which stretched out the dough log, which made my cookies MUCH less than an 1-1/2 in diameter. I think some of the cookies were probably 1/2”. 

I just tried my best with this process, it was a learning curve for the next time. I poured the sprinkles in a 9”x12” glass dish and rolled them that way. I would say use as little flour as possible when rolling them into a log, and keep the log about 2” in diameter, so when you roll them into the sprinkles the dough doesn’t get stretched too thin.

After rolling in the sprinkles, I let the dough refrigerate for about 4 hours which seemed to be plenty of time to let the dough firm enough to be able to slice into cookies. This part, I will say, was very satisfying. 

The next part was just placing them on a cookie sheet and baking. These did not spread much, so an inch apart should do honestly. I baked them according to the recipe at first, but I found baking them about a minute or two longer lead to deliciously crunchy cookies. I find these are much better on the crunchier side, rather than the soft side. If you want them soft, stick to the 6-7 minute range, when you touch the top of them with your finger, they should indent slightly. If you want them on the crunchier side, stick to the 8-9 minute ranger, or until the cookie springs back if you touch the top. 

These come out looking adorable, and come cleanly off of the cookie sheet. They smell of allspice and honestly, I don’t remember them being so strong of allspice as a kid. I tried one and at first I thought I didn’t like them, but by the time I finished the first one I was absolutely ready for another. I found these addicting, and the fact that mine came out so tiny didn’t help me wanting to eat 10 in a row.