Chocolate espresso cookies

I'm doing my best to stay away from too many sweets and fatty things these days because suddenly I see that over a year of food blogging has crept up on me in the form of far more ass than I need. Sam expressed a similar sentiment a few weeks back when she declared that food blogging makes you fat. I feel I should qualify that statement, at least in respect of my own current state of fatness. Because it's probably not the food blogging per se that makes me fat, it is that I (like all the food bloggers I know) already have a deeper connection with food than most people generally and the food blogging both celebrates that and exposes it as my greatest weakness.

As my mate Veronica once told me, "Lynette, You're your own worst enemy."

I suspect that amongst those of us who really truly love food in a way that regular folks don’t, there will always be a push and pull struggle between wanting to make the best food possible and wanting to not end up looking like Jabba The Cook. If I’m cooking a great meal, especially one I intend to blog about, why would I use low-fat sour cream? We all know full fat sour cream tastes and feels better. Sure. Until you wake up 6 months or a year down the road from that meal, and all those that followed it, and realize you’re not happy with the size of your keister and your favourite jeans just don’t fit any more. Which is where I’m at now.

And honestly, as much as I love cooking and sharing a great meal with my friends and family. I don’t love sharing my pants with that little roll of fat that spills over the top of them when I sit down to eat that meal.

And since I reckon that people read my blog because they also dig the food groove, most readers will have at least some of the same issues and be happy for the changes round here. Which brings me to the changes...

In honour of Sam’s inspiration, and my commitment to losing some of that Food Blog Fat, I’m going to make a concerted effort to slim down the offerings on Lex Culinaria for the forseeable future. Where recipes are posted that aren’t diet friendly (like this one), I’ll try to offer substitutions that will help make the recipe lighter. Unfortunately, there’s just not much that you can do to slim down a dark chocolate espresso cookie other than to control portion size, so I’ll try to offer calorie counts for my recipes as well so those who know their limits can have the information they need to make an informed choice.

On to the cookies.

Why do a post about cookies as my first entry after committing myself to lightening up my cooking?

Because I am the sort of person who, if I don't get a little treat now and then, will eventually crack and eat a whole cake myself, straight from the pan.

These cookies are perfect little treats. They aren't too sweet. They contain a bucket load of dark chocolate. And the texture is positively fudgy. And at about 70 calories a cookie, I can have a little pick me up in the afternoon instead of heading down to the Bernard Callebaut chocolate shop that someone who clearly hates me located very near the bottom of the elevators at work.

• 225 grams bitter-sweet (semi-sweet) dark chocolate
• 50 grams (about 2 tablespoons) butter
• 1 egg, plus two egg whites
• 50 grams brown sugar
• 50 grams white sugar
• 30 ml crazy strong coffee
• 100 grams almond meal
• 60 grams flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Melt chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler over medium heat. Whip eggs and sugar on high speed until pale and frothy, about 10 minutes. Stir chocolate mixture into egg mixture. Stir in coffee. Sift almonds, salt, flour and cinnamon together and mix into wet ingredients. Don't worry if your batter looks too runny to be cookie dough, it's supposed to look that way. Pour batter into a shallow plastic pan (one of those black plastic glad bake pans works well) and refrigerate for 3 or 4 hours, until the dough is chilled and firm. Roll dough into balls the size of a hard-boiled egg yolk. Dip each ball in sugar and then squash them flattish with the bottom of a glass or mug. If you'd rather not get your hands all sticky, you could roll the dough into a log, coat the log in sugar and slice cookie rounds from the log instead of making the balls. This should make 35 or 40 small cookies. Each cookie will run you about 70 Calories and 3 grams of fat.

You could reduce the fat and calorie count even more by using more flour and less almond meal and by substituting cocoa powder for some of the chocolate. Just remember to add a bit more sugar if you do that, as the semi-sweet chocolate has sugar in it that cocoa does not.

Bake in a 325F oven for 12 minutes.

Comments

[mireille]

proud of you. words we should all be living by. but, in the dark alley, after I have made your reasonably caloric, well-balanced entrees, i will continue to conduct my sordid hidden love affair with saturated fat. *at least you tried* *ashamed* xoxo

[Ange]

I know how you feel! I love food & find it very hard to cut back or choose low fat recipes. I started a liver cleansing diet at the start of this year & failed after 3 weeks, I was just so bored, not being able to whip up yuumy food was driving me insane. So now I am trying to keep the feasts to a minimum & cook some delicious low fat dinners instead - it is possible!

[S Matoba]

Since I've used a couple of your recipes recently, here's one of mine in not-really-a-recipe form. It's one of my favourite basic lunches to make at work.
couple handfuls of spinach leaves from a bag of washed spinach (up to 1/3 of a bag if you love the stuff)
walnut sized (or to taste) glob miso, your favourite type
quarter package firm or extra firm tofu, cubed
tiny dried shrimp

Microwave spinach leaves and tofu in a big bowl for a minute or so to warm the tofu and just wilt the spinach - you want the leaves bright green and still dry looking. Add hot water, from kettle or coffee machine, and stir in miso till well combined. Sprinkle shrimp on top. Pretty, yummy, healthy, cheap. I've used arugula instead of spinach, added shiitakes, etc.

[Cin]

It IS difficult to balance, isn't it? Anyway, wanted to let you know that I love this photo and the recipe sounds amazing.

[Alanna]

It's a small thing, calorie-wise but does work with baked goods (except, so far, for the standard Toll-house cookies). It's to cut the sugar in half, just like that. And the reward isn't less sweetness exactly, it's that less sugar means an expresso cookie becomes more COFFEE flavored, a lemon cookie more LEMON flavored. It's as if all that sugar veils the REAL and INTENDED essence of the cookie and so all we've been eating is many variations of SUGAR cookies! FYI I do typically bump up the essence ingredient too -- to put flavor right out in front. I've been doing this for about three years now, works like a charm nearly without fail.

[Cori]

I just started a blog (very uninteresting, not worth linking to) but I think you inspired me just now to start posting some healthy recipes every now and then. I studied nutrition for a year and a half and then transferred to Kendall College in Chicago for culinary arts.

Right now I work at Shawn McClain's Spring Restaurant downtown for my internship and have some food ideas from there too. I should take some pictures.

Anyway, you think blogging makes you gain weight? Well, actually I'm sure it doesn't help much :-) But holy crap, my baking and pastry class that I had last quarter nearly murdered me.

[McAuliflower]

Good tips!

I love how these cookies have that ginger snap look... and you know they'll be chewy just looking at them!

Biscotti are another good healthier cookie option.

[Alysha]

I hear you on all accounts. Blogging has inspired me to cook more which is mostly a good thing, except for those rolls of fat you mentioned. I think I've gone up one pant size since blogging!

I actually do cook pretty healthfully, but like you, I cannot deny myself completely or I want it all the more.

Moderation is key! I'm just not currently practicing moderation much....

Moderation and exercise. Exercise can go very far toward at least canceling out some of the bad eating habits.

My blog contains quite a few Cooking Light recipes - or at least recipes that are full of veggies and other healthful ingredients.

Good luck!

[Cathy]

What a gorgeous photo, and the cookies sound fantastic! I think 70 calories for treat that good is worth it - the only problem would be to limit yourself to just one. (My trick for handling that is to keep them in the freezer.)

[MM]

I so hear you. Unfortunately, my taste buds don't. Sigh. I love the photo by the way.