Café-Tasse dark chocolate chip cookies recipe by Alyssa
Alyssa shared her cookie recipe with us, and it has the merit of honesty: no factory-made chocolate chips, just a bar broken up by hand. The pieces are irregular, some melt, others stay whole — which is exactly what you want.
Ingredients for about twelve cookies
- 100 g Café-Tasse dark chocolate
- 150 g flour
- 85 g softened butter
- 85 g sugar
- 1 sachet vanilla sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
Preparation: 15 minutes • Baking: 10 minutes at 180 °C • Makes: about twelve • Difficulty: very easy
Step by step
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces with a knife rather than breaking it: you get both fine shavings and chunks, and both play a part.
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
- In a bowl, combine the softened butter, both sugars and the whole egg. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth.
- Separately, mix the flour, baking powder and salt, then add them gradually. Add the chocolate last.
- On a baking tray lined with baking paper, form small mounds with two tablespoons — or simply your hands. Space them well apart: they spread as they bake.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
The chocolatier's tip
Ten minutes sounds short. That is deliberate: straight out of the oven the cookies are still soft in the middle and you will think you got them wrong. Leave them for five minutes on the hot tray; they finish cooking on their own and firm up as they cool. A cookie baked until firm in the oven turns into a shortbread once cold.
The butter must be properly softened, not melted. Melted butter makes flat, greasy cookies; soft butter traps air and gives a chewy texture. Take it out of the fridge an hour beforehand, or cut it into small cubes to speed things up.
Which Café-Tasse chocolate to choose
The 60% dark is the best compromise for a cookie: rich enough in cocoa to stand up to the sugar in the dough, rounded enough to please everyone.
If you like a clear contrast between a sweet dough and a bitter chocolate, go for the 77% dark. All our 85 g bars work: 100 g is one bar plus one square.
Frequently asked questions
Should the dough rest?
It is not in Alyssa's recipe, and it is not necessary. But a night in the fridge concentrates the flavours and limits spreading: if you have time, try both and compare.
How long do they keep?
One week in an airtight tin. The raw dough freezes very well, shaped into balls: bake them straight from the freezer, adding two minutes to the baking time.
Why do my cookies spread too much?
Three causes, from most to least common: melted rather than softened butter, mounds placed on a tray that is still hot, or a dough overworked after the flour has been added.
To take the recipe further, discover our cocoa powder.