Mocha Chip Cookies

I cannot stand tea. Just the very smell of it grosses me out. I never used to understand how people drank coffee either, but I was always drawn to the smell. It was only when I went to New York and realised that coffee can be made with soya milk - and is tastes better iced - that I took to it like a duck to water. Nowadays not a day goes by without me having a cup of coffee and I've weaned myself onto the hot version too. 

A cookie with a coffee goes down a treat and this morning I thought I'd have a go at adapting my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe (itself a lower-fat adaptation of another recipe) to give it a coffee twist. Literally all I did was swap a little of the flour with ground coffee and some of the white sugar with brown. By "ground coffee" I mean the stuff you put in an espresso machine (I use Lavazza Crema Gusto), not instant coffee granules, though they would probably work OK too. 

I was rather pleased with the result because, after popping the cookies into a tub to keep fresh, I could smell the coffee as soon as I opened it but the taste isn't overpowering. Don't worry about the applesauce - it brings the fat content down but you can't taste it. Make sure you bake for the minimum time you can get away with, in order to keep the lovely soft and chewy texture inside.

Mocha Chip Cookies

Ingredients

150g plain flour (1 cup + 1 tbs)

1 tbs ground coffee

1/2 tsp baking soda

Pinch salt

35g chocolate chips (scant 1/4 cup)

45g caster sugar (1/4 cup)

45g soft light brown sugar (1/4 cup)

60ml sunflower oil (4 tbs or 1/4 cup)

35g applesauce (1/8 cup + 2 tsp)

2 tbs maple syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and line two baking trays with baking paper.

2. Combine the flour, coffee, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips in your main bowl.

3. In a smaller bowl, mix together the sugars, oil, applesauce, maple syrup and vanilla.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to form a dough.

5. Using a small (4cm) ice cream scoop (or roll balls with your hands) to put balls of dough on the baking trays, flattening them down into discs.

6. Bake for 7-8 minutes until just starting to turn golden at the edges (make sure you don't let the cookies get past this stage or they won't be as soft and chewy inside) then cool on a wire rack.

Makes: Approx 14