These Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies pack a whopping coffee punch and is not for the faint of heart! If you like your coffee strong, you’ll like these.
Here’s a painful realization: As you grow older, it gets harder and harder to find time to do what you want without shirking your responsibilities. You scrabble for time and energy to fit everything inside a 24 hour timeframe while still getting some time for that damned human requirement called sleep. Back in the day I’d pull all nighters because I needed to for school, but nowadays when I continuously sleep late I get bouts of bad allergies. It’s a frustrating and also an exhausting thing.
But the thing is, unless I’m totally exhausted for the day, there will be nights where I lay in bed in the wee hours of the morning unable to shut my brain off. Feelings of anxiety over unfinished things, mixed with new ideas to add into my never-ending to-do or to-try lists, keep me awake. The next day, I’d look like a freaking panda. I suppose here is where the value of coffee shoots up for me. Not only has coffee become something I love to drink, it’s become a necessity.
If they sold coffee in an IV drip, I’d probably have some.
And I’m not even saying that because coffee helps keep me awake throughout the day. (Most of the time it doesn’t, but I’m programmed not to fall asleep in public places, including at work.) Coffee has become something akin to my psychological fuel. My day literally feels incomplete if I hadn’t had my cup of joe. I keep looking for it when I haven’t had it, and it usually makes me feel better when I’m having a crappy time while the sun is still up. (I like drinking tea at night. I know, I probably have too much caffeine in my system at any given time.) I can go days without chocolate, but you gotta give me my coffee.
I am that girl that hides her dark circles under huge glasses while holding a venti-sized thermos of black coffee. Sometimes with a touch of milk.
Basically, these Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies are for people like me. People with an inexplicable love for the strong coffee taste, and who consider coffee a pick me up. Because these cookies don’t joke around. They should come with a warning sign that says: Intense coffee flavor coming up!
When I first tried these Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies, I was surprised by how strong the coffee flavor was. In hindsight, the 1/4 cup coffee powder was a pretty good indication of how strong the coffee flavor would be here. You get the chocolate, a bit of nutty complexity from the browned butter, but the coffee takes the spotlight. For sure. For those who like coffee that isn’t too strong, it might feel like a punch in the face. So yeah, these Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies might not be for everyone, but if you can relate to my story above, I reckon these might be right up your alley.
As my friend and fellow strong coffee-lover said, ‘It’s like eating a mocha drink.’ Except your mocha drink leans more towards the coffee side rather than the chocolate.
Recipe notes
I would think that most home bakers would have at least one go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, and if they ever tried others as I do, they’d notice a pattern to the recipes. It’s almost always the same procedure of creaming butter and sugar, adding egg, then folding in the dry ingredients and chocolate. But as mentioned in the original source of this recipe, Broma Bakery, aka one of my favorite blogs, there were three major tweaks done to this recipe to make it different. The first one was the browned butter.
I’m not new to this wonderful, nutty thing, but it’s definitely an extra step that not all cookie makers do. You basically melt butter in a saucepan and let it cook and sizzle, swirling the pan occasionally, until it turns a dark golden hue. It will smell super nutty and amazing. It will also add a deeper flavor to your cookie. Let it cool before you add it to your sugar, then beat them together until you get this super wet sand mixture. The butter will more or less be incorporated into the sugar but it will still be very wet.
Once you add the eggs and vanilla, the batter will look a bit more like your familiar choco chip cookie wet mixture. It will smell different though, thanks to that browned butter. Mmmmm.
Now the dry ingredients, with that whopping 1/4 cup of coffee powder, is whisked together in another smaller bowl and folded into the wet mixture. Fold just until everything comes together so you don’t overwork the dough once you add in the chocolate.
I always prefer chocolate chunks in my cookies, but sometimes I’m not willing to part with them lol, but in this case I chopped up some of my precious Auro chocolate buttons into chunks. You can use baking chips, but they won’t melt inside the cookies like actual chocolate will because of the shape-preserving agents. I recommend Ghirardelli for the chips, if you can get your hands on them. I still recommend good dark chocolate chunks over that though.
Mix chocolate until distributed, then pop the dough into the fridge for at least half an hour. If you decide to bake them right away, they will be flatter and less chunky. The colder the dough is going into the oven, the chubbier the cookies will be, so you decide.
Because these cookies are on the strong side, using the smallest cookie scoop turns it into the right size of cookie. You get to enjoy that strong coffee taste in smaller doses, while getting to bask in the superb chewy texture of the cookies. The flavor profiles of the chocolate, browned butter, and coffee become more distinct the next day, which is often the case with many of the good cookies. Oh, don’t forget the sprinkle of sea salt on top!
Once the flavors have settled, these become even better. However I will say these Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies are definitely more coffee forward than anything else, so keep that in mind. I love eating these warm by the way, because then the chocolate chunks inside turn gooey, and their warmth reminds me of a freshly brewed cup of coffee. You can actually place these on top of your hot coffee and let the steam heat up that center.
The scent of these cookies is something else. It’s like that moment you’re brewing coffee while baking a batch of choco chip cookies in the oven at the same time, except packaged into one single cookie. I could sniff these all day and look like a total weirdo, but then I still win since I get to eat them too!
Chewy Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 26 cookies using a 1-Tablespoon scoop
Ingredients
- ¾ cup 170 grams unsalted butter, browned* and cooled
- 1 cup 200 grams dark brown sugar, packed
- 1/3 cup 68 grams white sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¾ cups 210 grams all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup 30 grams instant coffee or espresso powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 4 ounces 115 grams bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
- Chocolate chips, to top (optional)
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together brown butter and both sugars until well combined. Beat in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt, espresso powder, and baking soda. Fold the dry mixture into the wet until everything just comes together. Finally, fold in the chocolate chunks just until distributed. Do not overmix!
- Cover with clingwrap and refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.
- Once ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. Using a 1-tablespoon measure scoop, portion the dough into balls. Place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets and press some extra chocolate chips on top, if desired.
- Bake cookies a sheet at a time for 11 minutes, or until edges are just golden brown and the centers have puffed up but are still gooey and soft. Refrigerate the dough while waiting for the batch in the oven to finish baking. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.
Notes

If you’re addicted to chocolate chip cookies like me, check out my Chocolate Chip Cookie Collection!
This recipe is included in this round-up video of 3 Coffee-Flavored Cookie Recipes to try!
Other recipes in this video:
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5 Comments
Jeeeseung Kahng
Hi, Clarisse. I am a coffee lover like you. I was so happy to find the recipe that is called for strong coffee flavour.
I was just wondering. Does it taste stronger with instant coffee or espresso powder? I do have both, but of course I want stronger flavour/taste…not worried about which one has stronger kick of caffeine since I drink lots of coffee anyways.
Thank you anyways and have a nice day!!
Clarisse
Hi there! It will be stronger with espresso powder. 🙂
Jeeeseung Kahng
It was sooo good! I see what you mean by browned butter is important in cookies. My cookies somehow kept the dome shape ( I used ice cream scoop ) but tasted very good. Thank you so much for introducing me to the world of browned butter!
Elizabeth
I love meeting you and tried you coffee chocolate chip recipe. The recipe noted “ melted” butter not “browned” butter.
The cookies taste was good but It didn’t have the nice dome like your…tutorial showed. Disappointed on how it looked…
Will try again.
Clarisse
Hello, I’m glad you liked the flavor of the cookies! Sorry to hear about the shape. I would suggest baking the cookies straight from the fridge/very cold to get a more domed shape. Do not let it come to room temp before baking so it doesn’t spread too much. 🙂