Today I offer you a life lesson in cookie form. Well, maybe two life lessons squooshed into one. If at first you don’t succeed…change your perspective.
Let me introduce you to the Moon Cookies™ a chocolate orb complete with craters of deliciousness. This is what the moon would look like if it was made of chocolate instead of green cheese. This Moon Cookie™ is soft and chewy chocolaty mocha. It has shiny craters of caramel coffee that encrust the cookie surface. It was a wonderful, unexpected mistake.
The Moon Cookie™ recipe began as a humble crackle-top brownie cookie recipe. Google “crackle cookie” and you will find about 1,270,000 results. Most look and taste identical. Many are sturdy and long lasting, making them prime candidates for care package cookies. They are definitely a pretty cookie with their dark chocolate cracks making a mosaic out of the powdered sugar dome. I wanted to include them on The Monday Box but another blogged crackle cookie seemed a bit redundant. Improving the flavor by adding espresso powder was easy. But what to do to make this cookie distinguishable from the rest at first glance?
First, I tried coloring nonpareil sprinkles in shades of caramel and brown. (Did you know you could color your own sprinkles?! I learned how on Pinterest. It’s very cool.) They looked beautiful, like African beadwork, but the almost solid surface crunch was too much and ruined the taste and texture of the cookies. Perhaps another use at another time.
Then, I remembered reading somewhere about using crushed hard candy for flavoring. I also remembered that had candy melts in the oven when used for recipes like stained glass cookies.
My first serendipitous event occurred when my supermarket was out of plain coffee candy. How different could caramel-coffee be? So, I bought that. I highly recommend you repeat this serendipitous action. The caramel adds something wonderful to these cookies and you still get the coffee kick.
Next comes the life lesson. I pulverized the candy used to coat my first batch. I was going for a sparkly look. When the cookies came out of the oven, they were covered in what looked like tiny bubble holes where the melted coating had sunken into the cookie. Not what I expected and not a particularly appealing sight. In a few places the holes, later determined to be craters, were larger. These craters were created when chunks of candy melted into the cookie. As the molten candy cooled it hardened into shiny pools of caramel coffee crunch. “Ah, ha!” moment.
The cookies were shiny and delicious, but until I put on my rose colored glasses I thought they were ugly. Then I saw them from a different perspective. Not ugly cookies, Moon Cookies™! My cookies looked like a chocolate moonscape. A star (technically a satellite) is born! There are definitely other Moon Cookie™ flavors waiting in the wings.
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon espresso powder
- 6 tablespoon unsalted butter or vegetable shortening***, melted in a cereal-sized bowl and cooled to room temperature
- ¾ cup cocoa powder (natural, not Dutch processed)
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips
- 25 caramel coffee hard candies (I used Werther’s), coarsely crushed
- ***Desert safe adaptations: Use vegetable shortening.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and espresso powder.
- Add the cocoa powder to the melted butter (or vegetable shortening) and mix until smooth
- In the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large mixing bowl if preparing by hand), combine the eggs and vanilla.
- Mix in the cocoa-butter mixture.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients, stirring until smooth and resembles brownie batter.
- Fold in mini chips.
- Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. To speed up the chilling process, put the batter in the freezer for about 30 minutes. This is a sticky dough. It is ready to use as soon as it is firm enough to scoop and roll into balls.
- When ready to bake: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Place hard candies into a freezer strength zip lock bag. Using a rolling pin or meat hammer, coarsely crush. Some pieces will crush down to sugar but leave as many pieces the size of mini chocolate chips as possible. Pour crushed candy into a small bowl.
- Scoop tablespoon sized dough and roll by hand into balls. (Even chilled, this dough can be sticky. I washed excess dough from my hands every 2-3 balls for easier rolling.)
- Gently press the top of each ball into the crushed candy.
- Place on prepared cookie sheet, at least 2” apart. For less cookie spread, refrigerate the cookies on the sheet for 15 minutes before baking. This is not required but results in a slightly thicker cookie.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes before placing on wire racks until completely cool. The candy craters will sink further into the cookies and harden as the cookies cool.
- Cookies will remain fresh 2 weeks or longer when stored at room temperature in an air tight container or zip lock bag.
I am over the moon with your creative solve to your “ugly” cookies. They look, sound, and I’m sure TASTE, fantastic! Well done!
Thanks, Gina! This one is made for puns. 🙂 We really have to help you get over your bake-a-phobia so that you can try one of the recipes. 🙂 I am excited to be accumulating an archive of desert safe recipes and am very proud that The Monday Box is now listed as an approved resource site at armywifenetwork.com 🙂
That’s great! You know what, I have a few questions for you and thoughts about other places to share your blog. Can you email me when you get a chance? thanks! -G
Oh how I wish the moon was made of cookies instead of cheese. I mean I love cheese, but a moon made of COOKIES?! That wins my best for sure. 😀 I love all the craters and the chocolate/caramel combo here Wendy!
Thanks, Jess! Those craters are certainly a matter of perspective. Moonscape craters filled with crunchy caramel-coffee is definitely the positive angle. 🙂
excellent advice about changing your perspective, and i love all the iterations these cookies went through! That takes some work, for sure. And who does need another crackle cookie anyway: i’ve done them too, and you know why (besides deliciousness?) they’re lovely to photograph, which probably makes them really easy to blog about. 🙂 i feel like i can taste the toffee-like crunch in these, and i bet they’re pretty amazing.
Thanks, Shannon. 🙂 I figure, if ultimately the baking and blogging really is play rather than work, then if it takes some trial,error, and adjusted perspective, who cares! I think my biggest stumbling block with these was that the crackle cookie IS so pretty and these are…..well….moonscapes. 🙂 The flavor and texture won me out in the end.
Great story behind these cookies! They sound delicious too! Sending this one to my daughter in law 🙂
Thanks, Suzie! These are addictive to any mocha fan. If your daughter in law does end up sending some to your son, I would really love to hear what he thought and how they arrived. 🙂
He is currently in the U.S. with her in Texas….let’s hope it stays that way! One deployment and 2,459 gray hairs later, I don’t need anymore! I’m sure he doesn’t want to go either 🙂
Oh, excellent! Your daughter in law can bake them and your son can eat them warm from the oven. 🙂 If I had a magic wand I would definitely make all deployments (and the need for them) disappear!
Okay, I had no idea you could color your own sprinkles! lol I’m very intrigued by this! And these cookies sound delicious!! Caramel and mocha – a great combination!
The sprinkle thing is soo cool, Ashley! I have no idea why they don’t melt (supposedly you can do powdered sugar and granulated sugar too!). Do a google or Pinterest search and you will find lots of posts. I am going to have to find a recipe to use them with. 🙂 I am really happy with the taste and texture of the Moon Cookies even though they don’t have sprinkles.:)
These look super addictive and delicious!!
Thanks, Ashley! If you like mocha, you will love these.:)
Delish! And I’m super excited about coloring my own sprinkles 😉
Thanks, Kiran! The idea of home coloring sprinkles and sugars must be a well guarded secret by those who sell the stuff at crazy high prices. 🙂 I recently went crazy looking for teal sprinkles and nonpareils. I wish I had known I could make my own!
These look so wonderful! I love the name ‘Moon Cookies’ – you’ve trademarked it? Good job, as I reckon these cookies are going to become the next big thing! I’ll definitely be making some soon and spreading the ‘Moon Cookie’ word over here in Australia 🙂 I dated a navy engineer before I got married. It’s so wonderful that you’re making your recipes ‘desert safe’ (and ‘ocean safe’?) as a resource for the troops. This guy used to buy horrible giant cookies from a vending machine at the naval base… they had pretty average food, for guys who work so hard. I think he and his mates would have loved a big care package of these cookies (but now I’ll make them for my husband instead!). Thanks for the recipe x
Thanks, Laura! I am excited about Moon Cookies and think there is potential for many more yummy variations. My husband, the business owner, suggested the trade mark. I am not a business person, I just followed his advice. We shall see what happens. 🙂 I hope you enjoy them as much as we did! Desert safe just means that the ingredients are chosen to offer the best possibility of freshness upon arrival in a VERY hot place. Apparently many normally used ingredients like moist sweeteners (honey, brown sugar, golden syrup, etc) or butter can make the baked goods arrive moldy or rancid. Not a good thing! I am sure they would be ocean safe too. 🙂 I am planning to include Anzac cookies in a post in the fall. I know that ,unfortunately, just about every country has had troops in need of cookies at one time or another.
I think you and your husband make a good team 🙂 I love the idea of Moon Cookies becoming a troop treat amongst Allied countries! The desert safe idea makes a lot of sense. I always thought that the butter, eggs etc would spoil but I had no idea that the moist sweeteners would. I guess I can understand why! The navy boy actually worked on the HMAS ANZAC for many months of the year! An Aussie icon (both the cookies and the ‘Anzac spirit’) in many ways. I’m excited to see your Anzac cookie recipe. I do also share the sad sentiment. It’s a shame that we have to think about feeding the troops at all 🙁 But you’re doing a wonderful thing by bringing sweetness to their lives x
I agree completely with your sentiment,Laura. I truly wish there was no need for troops. But as long as there are brave sons and daughters filling those dangerous jobs, their will be friends and family wanting to reach out and send them a piece of home. 🙂 Thank you so much for your kind words and support!!
My pleasure lovely. It’s been beautiful hearing your thoughts xx
Love these cookies!! They look and sound delicious! And coloring your own sprinkles? How fun is that!
Thanks, Jocelyn! When it comes to baking, I am learning to live by the motto, “Expect the unexpected!” These cookies were an unexpected success. 🙂 The sprinkle thing is just plain fun!!
I love the name you came up with for these! Moon cookies it is. I like the way they look – what a great way to add some uniqueness! The candy sprinkles sound really good and different.
Thanks,Reeni! The melted candy provides crunch and great flavor!