Despite the on-going increasing Omicron cases in Australia, I had a wonderful Christmas break. How about you? When I wasn't baking and bloging, I ran my 9th marathon at 3:58:58. I went to Sydney to rest and relax and also country Victoria to hike. Although the Covid cases are relatively high in Melbourne and Sydney, we are trying to live with it and enjoy everything like normal.Now, feeling refreshed. I'm back to baking and sharing, especially for the coming Chinese New Year...
I love butter cookies and also wish to bake butter cookies with real coffee. No coffee flavouring or emulco please!!!
After baking my Coffee Hot Cross Buns at here, I realised that baking with real coffee is actually not so straightforward like just adding coffee into my cake, cookies or bread mixture. This means that I will have to do several bake-and-taste investigations... And this is how I found my BEST Coffee Butter Cookies recipes.
Looking for the BEST Coffee Butter Cookies?Happy that I have found mine ^-^
My coffee butter cookies baking expedition begins by asking myself these serial of questions:1. Can I use real coffee to bake my coffee butter cookies?I noticed that many Asian-influenced baking blogs use coffee emulco (coffee flavouring) to bake their coffee cookies and I don’t want to do that.2. If I’m using instant coffee granules, how much coffee can I add?Not too little because I want my cookies to have a significant coffee aroma. Not too much because coffee is bitter, mild acidic and can break up the gluten content of the cookie dough, making it too runny and not easy to pipe subsequently.
3. If I dissolve the instant coffee in water, how much liquid can I add into a butter cookie mix? Can I add instant coffee into the cookies without dissolving it in water?
4. Will the added coffee change the gluten composition and texture of my cookies?Should I use bread flour or all-purpose or a combination of bread flour and cornflour to bake my cookies? If I’m using a combination of bread flour and cornflour, what kind of combination should I use?After considering every aspect of my questions, I could easily end up with more than 20 recipes to try! No way! So, in the end, I choose to develop the recipe systemically...
First, I started by baking a recipe with 100g butter and 10g instant coffee but without dissolving the coffee with water. The coffee flavor of cookies turned out to be really strong but the cookies are more on the bittersweet side with specks of undissolved coffee in them. I have baked these cookies with a combination of bread flour and cornflour. They turned out to be crispy, buttery and rather melty but they don’t really hold their shapes very well after baking.Pass or fail? I would say that it is not a significant pass or fail for me but reckon the cookies are slightly on the fail side because 10g instant coffee in every 100g butter used seems too much, resulting the cookies to be bittersweet. Next? I would also love to try dissolve the coffee with water for my subsequent bakes.
My first trial:10g instant coffee added into 100g butteradded a combination of bread flour and cornflour
Taste: strong coffee aroma but bittersweetTexture: crispy, buttery and rather melty but with specks of undissolved coffee
For my next bake, I dissolved 5g instant coffee in 5g hot boiling water and then added the coffee mixture into a butter cookie mixture containing 100g butter and 110g plain / all-purpose flour. And it worked perfectly! The shape of cookies can stay very nicely piped or pressed even after baking. Taste-wise, the coffee flavor is strong enough but in a right amount that it doesn’t make the cookies bitter. Texture-wise, the cookies are buttery and nice but not as melty like the ones that are made with a combination of bread flour and cornflour.
Ok. I'm satisfied. This recipe is definitely share-worthy and I called this Best Coffee Butter Cookies Recipe One.
Best Coffee Butter Cookies Recipe One:
5g instant coffee dissolved in 5g hot water, then added into 100g butter
used plain / all purpose flour with no other flour added
See! The cookies are perfectly shaped!!!
Taste: Perfect with strong coffee aroma. Not too sweet or bitter.
Texture: crispy, buttery but less melty
Look: PERFECT!
I found my best recipe but I'm still curious... I still want to know if I can make my cookies extra melty.
So, I baked another batch of cookies with 5g instant coffee (dissolved in hot boiling water) but this time with a combination of bread flour and cornflour that will make the cookies melty... And I called this Best Coffee Butter Cookies Recipe Two.Why use a combination of bread flour and cornflour? Why not plain (all-purpose) flour and cornflour? Why this combination?Based on my recipe one, I realised that I need about 10.45g of protein / gluten (from 110g plain / all-purpose flour containing 9.5% protein) in order to bake these cookies in perfect shapes.If I need to add cornflour to make the cookies extra melty, the amount of protein / gluten in the cookie dough will need to be bumped up to the minimal amount by using bread flour which contains 12% protein. And the combination work out to be 90g bread flour plus 20g cornflour, containing 10.8g of protein / gluten from 90g bread flour.In order to make the cookies ultimately extra melty but still holding their shapes fundamentally, I can bring down the amount of protein / gluten in the cookie dough a little further. And the combination work out to be 80g bread flour plus 30g cornflour, containing 9.6g of protein / gluten from 80g bread flour.Like what I expected, my ultimately melty coffee butter cookies turned out to be really nice with extra melty texture but their shapes are not as perfect as the ones made with Recipe One. Nevertheless, I think that they look acceptably ok. Definitely share-worthy as well.
My Extra Melty Coffee Butter Cookies
Best Coffee Butter Cookies Recipe Two:
5g instant coffee dissolved in 5g hot water, then added into 100g butter
used a combination of 80g bread flour and 30g cornflour
Taste: Perfect with strong coffee aroma. Not too sweet or bitter.
Texture: crispy, buttery and EXTRA MELTY
Look: Not so perfect but still ok
- Please do not substitute bread flour with plain / all-purpose flour because the cookies needs the extra gluten from bread flour to hold their shapes properly.
- Bake these cookies with real coffee... not coffee emulco or any artificial flavouring.
- Use good quality butter and instant coffee. Some people might say that instant coffee are average but I reckon it is the best form of concentrated coffee or unless you can make your coffee very concentrated with one teaspoon of water. LOL!!!
- Do not omit baking powder. Although the added baking powder is very minor amount and it might cause your cookies to rise and losing their shapes a little, it is still totally essential because it will add some “puff” in the cookies and making them taste nice and melty.
Here are the recipes.
Makes about 34 cookies, depending on the sizes of the cookies that you piped or pressed
Recipe One, The Best Perfect Coffee Butter Cookies:
5g instant coffee granules - mine is decaffeinated
5g hot boiling water
100g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
35g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla paste or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
110g plain/ all purpose flour, with 9.5% protein
1/8 tsp baking powder1/4 tsp salt
Recipe Two, Extra Crispy Melty Coffee Butter Cookies:
5g instant coffee granules - mine is decaffeinated5g hot boiling water100g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature35g icing sugar, sifted1/2 tsp vanilla paste or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional80g bread flour with 12% protein30g cornflour1/8 tsp baking powder1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven at 170ºC / 325ºF.
Dissolve coffee granules with hot boiling water. Set aside to cool completely to room temperature. This cooling step will help to dissolve any undissolved instant coffee eventually.
Using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar in a mixing bowl for about 1 min until combined and just creamy. Do not over-beat. Then, beat in the vanilla and coffee mixture.
Sift flour, cornflour (recipe two only), baking powder and salt into the butter mixture and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix to form a soft dough.
Transfer dough into a piping bag or cookie press fitted with any shape that you like.
Line baking trays with baking papers. Pipe dough into any shapes that you like with about 5 cm apart onto the prepared trays. Bake for 12-15 mins or until the cookies are thoroughly baked and crisp. Do not under-bake cookies or they won't be crispy. If you are baking two trays at one go, swap and rotate the position of the tray halfway through the baking in order to make sure that the cookies are baked evenly.
Allow the biscuits to cool slightly (about 10 mins) on the trays and then transfer them onto the wire rack to cool completely. Cookies are crispy only when they are completely cooled.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks. The cookies will remain crispy, melty and perfectly delicious even on the 3rd week.
Happy Baking
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