Chapter Fifteen

A Skillet Cookie Is…

A skillet cookie is divine. In it’s crackly surfaces, its puddles of chocolate, its warm fudgy centers, and crispy uneven edges. A skillet cookie is easy. In its ability to serve multiple people at once, in it’s quick bake, one pan ease, and use of the entire dough in one go. A skillet cookie is perfect. Especially when it’s made up of espresso, and caramelized white chocolate. For all the reasons above plus the unbelievable flavor when espresso, browned butter, and caramelized white chocolate come together. It tastes like a caramel latte, or any other number of coffee caramel delights and it is undeniably divinely easy perfection.

Skillet cookies are an incredibly easy party dessert (or a dessert for one in front of the tv-no judgment here). All you have to do is throw together your cookie dough, and instead of having to individually roll out cookies and bake them in batches you get to dump all the cookie dough in one go! Top it with ice cream and drizzle it with caramel plus any other toppings you like and stick it at the end of your dessert table so people can easily self-serve. It’s also amazing for movie nights, general parties, or birthday bashes. This particular cookie skillet could also be made just for someone who loves coffee, or lattes, or caramel macchiatos. Honestly anyone who loves to enjoy something straight out of a bakery, no I’m not kidding this cookie is seriously out of this world. It’s decadent, delicious, and is just as comforting as a warm cup of coffee. So skip your trip to starbucks and try making this instead I promise you won't regret it.  

Browned Butter- Browned butter is amazing as the base of every cookie, but here particularly it really serves its purpose with all of its nutty flavors especially with the espresso and dulcey chocolate. It helps add that extra caramel flavor! Just heat your pan and stir often until it starts to change in color. Even if you take it off heat in a lighter brown color it can continue to brown outside of the pot so sometimes it's better to transfer it once you first start seeing browned bits floating around!

Malt Powder- I tend to add malt powder to most of my cookie recipes just because I love the nutty milky flavor and how it compliments browned butter (which is usually the base of most of my cookie recipes). Just a dash here will help bring together the flavors of the cookie but it’s completely optional so if you don't have it on hand don't worry!

Espresso Powder- Just with the addition of instant espresso powder this cookie becomes phenomenal. It manages to tie in all the flavors of this cookie from the dulcey chocolate, to the brown butter, to the malt powder, to the sea salt. There's something especially amazing about the addition of coffee in most desserts but here it’s absolutely spectacular.

Chocolate- The particular cookie skillet with all of its flavors of espresso NEEDS the addition of dulcey chocolate. It adds all those special caramel flavors and helps create that taste of a caramel latte! White chocolate is also perfect with the browned butter and malt powder, but make sure to include caramelized white chocolate even if it's not dulcey.

Sea Salt- Sea salt is especially amazing with caramel so make sure to include this on top of your final drizzle of caramel! It’ll tie in all the flavors and make such a lovely contrast with all the sweetness of this dish.