Crispy Cocoa Cookies Recipe

Why You Need to Make These Cocoa Cookies

If you love a crispy cookie, these are for you.

Not crunchy, which is something entirely different.

The texture of these cocoa cookies is light and crisp and very snack-ish.

The flavor is deeply chocolatey. I use a relative LOT of instant coffee in them, but all my tasters said they couldn’t taste the coffee.

It’s there to give backbone to the cocoa. The result is deeply chocolatey and the opposite of fudgy. Crisp and light, these are like the potato chips or Ritz crackers of chocolate cookies.

You can eat them one after the other, which is why you’ll thank me that they’re made with only 1 Tablespoon of cookie dough each!

What Makes a Cookie Crispy?

Texture is such a big part of flavor, or the overall experience of eating a food.

Think how disappointing it is to bite into a stale potato chip. But a fresh, thin and crispy potato chip is a real treat.

Here are the ingredients you can manipulate to get a crispy cookie.

• Fat: Liquid fat will spread more than solid fat since it doesn’t have to spend time melting into a liquid in the oven. So starting with melted butter and/or replacing some of the butter with oil or adding a bit of oil in addition to butter will allow for more spread, a thinner cookie, resulting in a crisper bite.
• Liquid: Adding a lot of water-type liquid (which is about 20% of the weight of butter) can activate too much gluten, making a crunchy rather than crisp cookie. Using oil gives more fat-type liquid to make the dough easy to mix without contributing to gluten formation. Result? Crisp cookies. Yay, science!
• Sugar: Brown sugar holds onto moisture and makes a softer cookie. Using mostly or all granulated sugar allows for more spread and a crisper cookie. I also added just a little corn syrup here. When underbaked, corn syrup provides a chewy “bend” to the cookies, but when fully baked, it contributes crispness.
• Eggs: The difference between adding a whole egg or two and just egg white is the difference between a rich, fudgy cookie that might be crunchy (depending on other factors), and a cookie that bakes up light and crisp. The egg white provides the structure needed to bake up crispy (think crisp, light meringue cookies) without the additional fat and emulsifiers in egg yolks.
• pH: Batter/dough with a high pH (above 7, which is neutral) take longer to bake, and if a batter is too basic (pH above 7), it might not even set up at all. So, to give your cookies the best chance of spreading out thin, raise the pH. This is done by adding a relative LOT of baking soda, which has a pH of about 8.5
• Oven temperature: The higher the oven temperature, the faster the outsides and edges of the cookies will set up, and once they do, the cookie won’t spread. Baking at a lower temperature allows the cookies to spread pretty well before the edges set up and no more spread is possible

If you take a look at the recipe for the soft chocolate cookies, you’ll be able to see the substitutions/additions I made to turn a cookie from soft and thick into one that spreads out and bakes up into crispy goodness.

How To Make Them

These crispy little cocoa cookies are super easy to make. I didn’t use my mixer or even a hand mixer, and you won’t have to either

Ingredients and Substitutions

Here is what you’ll need. I’ll mention substitutions where possible.

• flour: all-purpose flour is your best choice here. Flour provides bulk, texture, and structure
• baking soda: assists with crisping and also neutralizing the acidic cocoa powder and instant coffee in the recipe
• butter: melted, unsalted butter
• vegetable oil: assists with spread and a light, crispy texture
• cocoa powder: provides the main flavoring in the cookies as well as some bulk
• instant coffee: provides a flavor backbone to the chocolate, making the flavor deep and complex. You can use instant espresso instead, but add it a little at a time so it doesn’t overwhelm the chocolate flavor
• sugar: granulated sugar provides sweetness, a crispy texture, and even more “spread” so the cookies bake up thin and crisp
• corn syrup: Adds negligible sweetness, but is also there to promote spread and crispiness when baked through. You can substitute maple syrup or honey if you prefer
• kosher salt: A chocolate cookie needs a substantial amount of salt to both bring out the flavor and counteract the bitterness from the acidic cocoa powder and instant coffee
• vanilla extract: Rounds out the flavors. For extreme chocolate cookies, you can substitute chocolate extract or for a nuttier flavor, use about 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
• egg whites: Provides structure, some liquid, and the protein necessary to help the cookies set up to a delightfully crispy texture

Procedure

As I said, these cookies are very easy to make. Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Whisk the flour and baking soda together.
2. Partially melt the butter in the microwave and then whisk until it is all melted.
3. Add oil, sugar, corn syrup, salt, instant coffee, cocoa powder, and egg whites. Whisk until well combined. NOTE: The instant coffee may not completely dissolve, but that’s okay. I’ve made these cookies several times and eaten a LOT, and I’ve never bitten into a weird extra-coffee-ish one.
4. Switch to a spatula, add the flour/baking soda mixture, and carefully stir until uniformly combined. The dough should be dark brown and relatively shiny.
5. Allow the dough to sit for about 5 minutes to make it easier to scoop.

To form the cookies for baking, scoop level tablespoons of dough, roll them into balls and drop into a bowl of granulated sugar, making sure to coat them fully.

Place the sugar-coated balls of dough (proto-cocoa cookies) onto a parchment-lined sheet. No need to press them down, because they will spread out nicely while in the oven.

You’ll end up with cookies that are about 2 1/2″-3″ in diameter, which to me is the Perfect Cookie Size.

Equipment You May Need

You’ll need 2 bowls–a medium-sized one and a larger one. This nesting set of 10 glass bowls will give you sizes you need from large to small.

Parchment and half-sheet pans are my go-to cookie “set up.”

Cool the cookies on the pan for 3 minutes, and then you’ll need a spatula to move them to cooling racks to cool completely.

For more information on what I consider to be essential tools, you can read my post about tools for serious bakers.

Variations

To keep the magical crispy texture, I don’t necessarily recommend adding any mix-ins. Mix-ins tend to limit spread, so you will probably end up with a crunchy rather than crisp cookie.

If you do want to add mix-ins, keep them small. Use mini chocolate chips or chopped chocolate or toasted nuts that you chop really fine.

Adding some orange zest is a great variation, especially for you chocolate orange lovers out there.

Using a few drops of peppermint oil or up to a teaspoon of peppermint extract would also give you a thin mint cookie experience (minus the chocolate coating, which you could easily add yourself)

Tips for Success

This cookie dough starts out very soft. If you allow it to sit for a few minutes, it’s much easier to work with, even without refrigerating it.

For crispiest results, scale your cookies out at the 1 Tablespoon size. These do spread quite a bit, and even 1 1/2 Tablespoons can result in a cookie that’s maybe a bit bigger than you’d like. On the other hand, they’re your cookies, so do what you need to do!

Crispy Cocoa Cookies Q & A

Serving Suggestions

All that is necessary here is a glass of milk or maybe a mug of beaten coffee.

These cocoa cookies will also make an excellent crumb crust. I know they’d be fantastic as the crust for my brother’s favorite pie, chocolate cheesecake pie.

You can also crumble them and mix them into ice cream base for homemade cookies and cream ice. Try a vanilla no-churn ice cream (please add some salt to this base), or consider my no-churn French vanilla ice cream. It has a few more steps, but it’s a great, rich, French-style custard ice cream.

Questions

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

A Note About Measurements

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids.

Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

If you love a good crispy cookie, I think you’ll really appreciate these crispy cocoa cookies.

Take care, and have a lovely day.

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