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By Request

By Betty Shimabukuro

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
These chewy coffee-flavored cookies have the added
richness and texture of macadamia nut bits in every bite.

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Treat blends
mac nuts ’n coffee

How about we take two of life's indulgences and roll them into one little baked item full of all the right flavors?

Kathleen Goto loves commercially made macadamia nut-espresso cookies and wants to make something like them at home.

This required some experimentation, resulting in many reject cookies flooding the newsroom, which is OK. Deadline makes you hungry for just about anything.

Anyway, the problem turned out to be that coffee is wet. This means you can't intensify the coffee taste in a cookie by adding more coffee, no matter how strong it is. The dough becomes too thin. Adding more flour isn't the answer; that just leaves you with pale doughballs that taste wimpy.

Best solution is instant coffee, or instant espresso, if you can find it. Coffee extract is another thought, but is very hard to find. It has to be instant coffee, by the way. Fresh ground, as good as it smells, leaves too much grit in the cookie.

A mix of brewed coffee and instant produced a dark brown cookie with flecks of coffee granules throughout. Very intriguing and very flavorful. The final recipe that follows was adapted from "1001 Cookie Recipes" by Gregg R. Gillespie (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 1995).

It results in a chewy cookie that doesn't rise much. It tastes way better than it looks.

To build on the coffee-mac nut experience, also included here are two recipes from "The Mauna Loa Macadamia Cooking Treasury" by Leslie Mansfield (Celestial Arts, 1998)

Espresso Mac Nut Cookies

Adapted from "1001 Cookie Recipes"

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules or instant espresso
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup espresso or strongly brewed coffee, cooled
1/2 cup macadamia nut pieces

Combine dry ingredients and set aside.

Cream shortening with sugar. Beat in egg. Beat in coffee. Gradually blend in dry ingredients. Stir in nuts.

Drop dough by spoonfuls 1-1/2 inches apart onto lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Makes about 30 cookies.

Store in an airtight container as soon as cookies are cool or they will go soft quickly.

Variation: Replace nuts with an equal amount of chocolate chips.

Macadamia and Coffee Chocolate Bars

"The Mauna Loa Macadamia Cooking Treasury"

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup coffee-flavored liqueur
1-3/4 cups flour
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, in 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup finely chopped macadamia nuts

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add egg and liqueur and mix well. Gradually stir in flour.

Press dough evenly into a greased 15-by-10-inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Immediately top with chocolate and allow to melt. Spread evenly. Sprinkle with nuts.

Cool pan to room temperature on a wire rack, then chill 10 minutes, or until chocolate has set, before cutting.

Store loosely covered.

Makes about 32 bars.

Chocolate-Topped Mocha Cookies

"The Mauna Loa Macadamia Cooking Treasury"

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped macadamia nuts

Topping:
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening

Cream butter and sugars together until smooth. Add egg, instant coffee and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add flour, baking power and salt and beat until smooth. Stir in nuts.

Shape into 1-inch balls and place on baking sheets. Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees, or until golden brown. Cool on racks.

To make topping: On top of a double boiler, melt chocolate chips and shortening together over simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat and spread a dollop of the chocolate mixture on top of each cookie.

Makes 3 dozen.

Nutritional information unavailable.

Food Stuffs: Morsels

Send queries along with name and phone number to:
By Request, Honolulu Star-Bulletin Food Section,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Or send e-mail to bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.