These chocolate drop cookies are made with melted chocolate and iced with a coffee frosting.
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This recipe actually comes from my grandmother. It's one of a few that we return to, again and again, along with this hot milk cake, which we use to make trifle every summer (or this eggnog trifle for the holidays).
Growing up, my mom always baked from her recipe box. And, while most kids ate store-bought Oreos, we had these homemade chocolate drop cookies. I was really lucky that my mom always baked for us.
These chocolate drop cookies aren't overly chocolaty, but they are just right to me. I grew up eating these cookies, and sometimes my mom would even sneak in a few chocolate chips for an extra hit of chocolate. These cookies are on the cake-y side, much like a whoopie pie, which makes sense if you look at the ingredients list.
Growing up, we ate them plain, and we ate them frosted. The coffee frosting is really quite special and changes the cookie completely: this frosting transforms these seemingly simple chocolate cookies into something a little more decadent and fancy.
Chocolate drop cookies with coffee frosting
Ingredients
Chocolate drop cookies
- 115 grams (½ cups) unsalted butter
- 57 grams (¼ cup) dark chocolate
- 200 grams (1 cup) light brown sugar
- 1 large egg(s)
- 250 grams (2 cups) bleached all-purpose flour
- 5 mL (1 teaspoon) baking powder
- 1.25 mL (¼ teaspoon) baking soda
- 125 mL (½ cup) whole milk (3.25 % fat)
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) pure vanilla extract
Coffee frosting
- 173 grams (1½ cups) icing sugar, sifted
- 10 mL (2 teaspoon) Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder
- 22 grams (1½ tablespoon) unsalted butter
- 7.5 mL (1½ teaspoon) pure vanilla extract
- 45 mL (3 tablespoon) hot coffee
Instructions
Chocolate drop cookies
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Prepare 2 baking sheets, lining them with parchment paper.
- Melt the chocolate with the butter on medium in the microwave, stirring every minute or so until they are melted.
- Transfer these to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and add the brown sugar. Beat until smooth, then add the egg, and beat it in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and a pinch of salt.
- Add half the flour mixture, and stir it in on low speed, scraping down the bowl as needed, then add the milk and vanilla, and stir it in, and finish the dough by stirring in the last of the flour mix. Let stand for 10 minutes to set (especially important if the butter/chocolate mix was very warm).
- Scoop the cookies onto the parchment-lined sheets, spacing them about an inch apart.
- Bake the cookies for about 10 to 12 minutes. They will be puffy like whoopie pies.
- Let cool a couple minutes in the pan on a rack before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Repeat the scooping and baking with the remaining dough.
Coffee frosting
- When all the cookies are baked and cooled, make the frosting. Sift together the icing sugar and cocoa powder into a medium bowl, then stir in the butter, working it in if you can. The mixture will be crumbly and dry.
- Add in the vanilla and hot coffee and whisk them in. The frosting should have the consistency of a glaze.
- Top each cookie with a generous dollop of frosting, spreading it with a small offset spatula. Let the frosting harden before storing.
Notes
- For the dark chocolate, I like to bake with Cacao Barry chocolate
- For the cocoa powder, I like to use the Extra Brute cocoa from Cacao Barry available on Amazon.
Mardi Michels says
These are beautiful Janice 🙂 Nothing like a tried and true recipe, especially from your grandma!
Janice Lawandi says
Thanks, Mardi!
Liz says
I don't remember ever having coffee frosting but I sure remember the cookies - like little cakes. Yes, I actually had someone laminate one of the old recipe cards with my mom's handwriting so I would not lose it completely. I still use many of her recipes also though I have had to tweak them because of Calgary's altitude. And, I think it was the "Uncle" George who lived next to us at the cottage who was allergic to eggs, not our real great-uncle George. Great trip down memory lane again, Janice! Thanks!
Janice Lawandi says
Thanks for reading, Auntie Liz! The frosting is actually written up as "Suggested icing for chocolate drop cookies", word for word. Quite funny! Altitude baking is a little more complicated and does require some tweaking unfortunately....
Mallory Frayn says
Grandma's recipes are the best, aren't they? The only problem I have is that my Grandma often makes a recipe so many times that she actually forgets where she got it from (or where the recipe actually is for that matter). Not the greatest for replication purposes!
Janice Lawandi says
I know what you mean. It's funny, we have a lemon loaf recipe that I have made a few times over the years, and every time I serve it at a gathering, somebody always says it tastes exactly like their lemon loaf. Then we compare our recipes to find they are identical, but we all never know exactly where they came from because the recipe is written up on a recipe card and not from a newspaper! But it's pretty neat to meet people from different provinces who all have the exact same lemon loaf recipe 🙂
Ann Steckley-Dias says
I love your photos!
Janice Lawandi says
Thanks, Ann! I kept it very minimalist because, really, I just wanted to show off the cookies without too many distracting plates/props 😉
Premium Nespresso Capsules says
Love this recipe! Photos look fab as well! Thanks for posting!
Anukriti says
I tried making these today, however, my batter was not dough like. It was little runny. Something between dough and a cake batter. And cookies weren't well cooked also. They got burnt and were not well cooked after 10-15 mins. I used exactly the same measurement mentioned in the recipe. What went wrong? 🙁
Janice says
I'm sorry to hear that! Honestly, my mother and I (and my grandmother) have been making these for years, so this recipe really should work! Here are my suggestions:
- If your batter was runny, perhaps your melted chocolate was too warm when you added it. The dough will stiffen up as the chocolate sets and cools.
- Do you use an oven thermometer to verify the temperature of your oven? If your cookies burned in 10 minutes, then probably your oven was too hot. I'd definitely recommend investing in an oven thermometer.
I hope this helps and please write back if you have any other questions or comments!
Susan J LaBell says
I don't see how much cocoa to use in the frosting. It's not listed in the recipe.
Janice says
You are right! The cocoa power was missing but now I've added it. Thanks for your comment! And I hope you enjoyed the cookies!