Coffee Walnut Cookies

The first time I made these cookies was late one Saturday night when we were watching movie after movie and I suddenly felt like munching something! Went into the kitchen during a couple of commercial breaks and Ta-Da! It was ready! Had used the food processor then and it was such a breeze to bake them! And well, the batch I baked that night got over even quicker ;) But i did have more of the cookie dough saved up in the fridge, which I baked again a couple more times and they didn't last long enough either, to take some decent pics!

Being coffee lovers that we are, we literally fell in love with these cookies. But then the amount of butter that goes into it restrained me from making them quite often :). But then it is Okay to indulge once in a while, right? Some solace is that it is also loaded with healthy fat from walnuts. So made another batch of these recently and made sure we get some pics this time!

I had bookmarked this recipe from Suma's Cakes and More, which is originally from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. It is a breeze if making in a food processor; making it by hand is not very tedious either. And the best part is the dough can be stored in the fridge as logs for a few days and when needed, all the work needed to be done is pull out one log, cut it into discs and bake! 

Since it makes quite a huge batch, this is a blessing, rather than having to make all the cookies at once, and rolling them on palms! I chose to make rather small cookies and got about 25-30 cookies from each log and there were 5 logs! Shared them with friends also, after devouring them enough. The cookies also stay fresh for quite a long time - about a month in an airtight container, that is if you can resist it that long! 

Coffee Walnut Cookies

Preparation time: 15 min (if using food processor; slightly more if making by hand)

Baking time: 10 - 17 minutes (See below for details)

Makes: ~100 small cookies / 50-60 medium ones

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour – 2 cups 

Walnuts – 1 cup (roughly chopped)

Sugar – 3/4 cups

Salt – 1/4 tsp 

Unsalted butter – 3/4 cup ( 170 grams) / chilled and roughly cut up (I reduced it by 2-3 Tbsp and added some milk instead)

Milk- 1.5 Tbsp (Added this to replace part of butter; not needed if using the entire amount of butter)

Instant coffee- 3 teaspoons (Divided use, original recipe has fresh ground coffee beans)

Coffee Essence – 1 tsp (skipped this)

Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon

Coffee beans –  to put on top (I didn't use this)

Method: 

• Put the walnuts, flour, sugar and salt if using, in the bowl of a food processor and pulse till the walnuts are finely ground. (If not using food processor, do this step in batches in a mixie jar.)
• Pulse again with 2 teaspoons of coffee till well blended. (If not using the food processor, continue with a hand mixer or even by hand in a large bowl). 
• Add chilled butter and pulse again till breadcrumb like mixture forms (or mix with a large fork)
• Add the coffee extract and vanilla essence; pulse just until the dough begins to form lumps around the blade. (Mix the dough together either by hand mixer or even by hand till it roughly comes together.)
• Take out the mixture; pull together to form a dough; add milk if you feel there is a need for binding; knead briefly to make it smooth. 
• Roll into logs (I made 5 small round logs) wrap in cling wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.

To bake the cookies:

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C / 375 degrees F.
• Take logs out, slice 1/4″ apart. I made them thinner as I wanted smaller cookies. If slicing as 1/4 inch, they spread out more too.
• Push a coffee bean firmly in the center of each cookie, if using. 
• Roll the edges of a few in the remaining coffee if you wish. 
• If the cookies do not get a good round shape when sliced, just shape it holding it gently but firmly against your palm.
• Place the cookies slightly apart on ungreased pan and bake.
• If making small cookies or using milk in place of butter, they get done in 9-10 minutes. If making larger cookies or using the entire butter, they take about 15 to 17 minutes.
• The edges will be slightly starting to brown, and the cookies will still be soft when done. They get crisp once they cool.
• Cool completely and store in air tight container or just finish off a batch... nothing like warm cookies just out of the oven ;)

Notes:

• The first time I used a food processor and the next time made the dough by hand. If making by hand, make sure you mix pretty fast before the butter starts to melt due to your body temperature.
• Replacing part butter with milk didn't change the taste much.
• I baked the 5 logs in 3 batches, just when needed - they stayed in fridge for 3-4 days and were fine.