Coffee is something I love to enjoy and living in Melbourne, great coffee can be found almost everywhere. I’m not the kind of person who needs a cup of joe to start my day and keep me sane, but I do love it.
I’m not traditional with what coffee I enjoy either. I know people who will always have the same drink but I like to mix it up a little. Sometimes it’s an espresso to give me a much needed wake-up jolt in the morning, or a milky latte coupled with good banter with a friend at lunchtime. If work is crazy busy and I need something to give me an energy boost, it’s a cute little piccolo! I’ve also started to dabble with the Chemex pourover which is awesome too.
Coffee ranting aside, it’s also a flavour I adore in cooking and sweets. It lifts anything chocolately like brownies or warm puddings and coffee ice-cream is one of my all time favourite flavours. As I was enjoying (aka scoffing my face) some delicious yo-yos the other day, a brilliant idea popped into my head: what would coffee yo-yos taste like? So, with this recipe, I decided to marry those three delicious elements: coffee, chocolate and shortbread!
I tinkered with the base recipe of my passionfruit yo-yos and with my very first attempt, I created these delicious cookie sandwiches. My yo-yos are usually macaron sized and whilst I hate little cutesy things, I couldn’t resist making these teeny tiny. To go with the cutesy theme, they are now called kisses :)
This recipe is a little fiddly, but after you get a whiff of these bad boys fresh from the oven then taste them with the coffee infused chocolate ganache, you’ll thank for me creating another way of getting your daily coffee fix. Enjoy!
Espresso Cookie Kisses
125g unsalted butter, softened
60g icing sugar, sifted
splash of vanilla extract
135g plain flour
2 tablespoons cornflour
2 heaped tablespoons roasted coffee beans, freshly ground
Coffee Infused Chocolate Ganache
100g milk chocolate, melted
100ml cream
2 heaped tablespoons roasted coffee beans, freshly ground
1. Heat the cream until boiling point and dump the coffee grinds in. Leave to infuse for 20 minutes before straining. Mix this with the melted chocolate and set aside.
2. Using a mixer or just bowl and a wooden spoon, cream the butter, vanilla extract and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Sift flours over butter mixture and add the coffee. Mix until a soft dough forms. Chill in the fridge for an hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 160C. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Set aside.
4. Roll little teaspoonfuls of mixture into small balls. I am obsessed with my new digital scales so I actually made each dough ball exactly 10 grams (don’t judge me)Place on trays. Using a fork dipped in flour, lightly flatten each biscuit until 1cm thick. Bake for 15 minutes or until firm. Cool on trays for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Spread/pipe one biscuit with 1 teaspoon of filling. Top with another biscuit. Repeat with all remaining biscuits and filling.
Makes about 16 but recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.
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