Chocolate Espresso Bean Cookies

I have been obsessed with chocolate covered espresso beans lately. First, I made the Espresso Chip Cookie Dough Shortbread Bars. I loved the dough so much, I knew I had to make it into a baked cookie. Oh boy, am I glad I did. These cookies are soft, packed with espresso flavor and a hint of chocolate. As soon a I gave my taste testers a bite, they couldn’t help but say ” oh my God” at their eye rolled back into their heads. That’s when you know you have a good cookie.

The basic structure of my cookie was adapted from Picky Palate’s chocolate chip cookie dough; it is by far the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have found. I altered my cookie to add additional brown sugar, halved the vanilla and added some Kahlúa to compliment the coffee flavor. In addition to the chocolate covered espresso beans, I added some strong espresso to the mix. My favorite thing about these cookies is that even though they are packed with coffee flavor, the chocolate is still an important player. I’m basically telling you that you HAVE to try these.

Espresso Chip Cookie Dough Bars

A few weeks back, my mom and I went on a bakery tour in Austin when I was there for the BlogHer Food conference. One of the bakeries I went to was called Delish and they had a fabulous millionaire bar. The bar consisted of a shortbread crust layered with cookie dough, caramel and chocolate. As soon as I tasted it, I knew I wanted to make my own version at home. I had a few leftover boxes of Walkers Shortbread Cookies so it was the perfect opportunity to try something.

My version of the “millionaire bar” has a shortbread crust, made with a mixture of Walkers Shortbread cookies, and is layered with espresso chip cookie dough then topped with an espresso infused chocolate ganache.

Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies

A few weeks ago, actually a few months ago, I went to Colorado for my brother’s graduation. I have been putting off writing this post for whatever reason; but today is the day. When I was in Fort Collins, I went to this place called Mary Mountain Cookies; it was oh my god amazing. First of all, their cookies were the size of my face. They had more than a dozen flavors to choose from AND they had a variety of frozen cookie doughs (for take n’ bake) and other frozen treats. So naturally I bought eight cookies to try.

I was so intrigued by the blueberry cheesecake cookies that I decided to recreate them at home. They are blueberry cookies topped with graham crackers and a cream cheese glaze. Their cookies were soft  and chewy; they’re pretty much my cookie idols.

Deep-Fried Cookie Dough

I would like to dedicate this post to Hayley from The Domestic Rebel and Sarah from The CandiQuik blog. Thanks to those two ladies, I was introduced to Torchy’s Tacos in Austin, Texas. Besides having some amazing tacos, they also have deep-fried cookie dough. Having a limited experience will deep-fried desserts, I was overcome with joy as I bit into the soft chocolaty center. Their deep-fried cookie dough was crisp on the outside and soft in the middle with melted chocolate chips. I set out to recreate this deep fried deliciousness at home.

Besides being a little messy, this was pretty fun. Plus, it gave us an excuse to make homemade chicken fingers with the deep fryer (Thanks Jef!). I had some helpers with my deep fried dough and we had a great time. Edible cookie dough is kind of amazing. I coated my cookie dough with a mixture of egg, pancake mix and crushed corn flakes. The corn flakes give the outside a crunchy layer without dominating the cookie dough flavor. I happened to use a deep fryer for mine, but you could do this with a Dutch oven on the stovetop as well. Start by preparing the cookie dough.

Seven Layer Bar Frosting

OH MY GOSH, I am kinda excited about this Seven Layer Frosting. I love cupcakes; I really believe that the frosting can make or break a cupcake. I was never a huge fan of frosting, until I started to make my own. I used to eat the cake all the way around and leave the frosting on my plate.

Well I was looking to try some new frosting recently.I have been on kind of a coconut and chocolate kick; see Pina Colada Cupcake or Chunky Monkey Layer Bars. I was inspired by high hat S’mores frosting and I wanted to try a different frosting with graham cracker mixed in.