Cookie Heaven: Mocha Shortbread

By Amy Traverso

Dec 12 2013

Mocha shortbread from The Coastal Table

Photo Credit : Photo by Cassandra Birocco

Last weekend, we spent a wonderful day at the third annualEat Boutique holiday market, a sort of craft fair for artisan food makers, organized by local foodie guru Maggie Battista. Yankee was a media sponsor of the event and we had a great time meeting our readers, as well as the talented bakers and chefs and brewers and confectioners who were selling their wares. The market also hosted a group of cookbook authors, who signed their books and chatted with readers. I was there representingYankee’s Lost and Vintage Recipes and The Apple Lover’s Cookbook. And so was Karen Covey, a Massachusetts-based food writer who published her first book, The Coastal Table, this year.

The book celebrates the food-rich corner of coastal New England that stretches from southern Massachusetts, through Rhode Island, and down to Connecticut. It’s gorgeous, with lovely photography by Cassandra Birocco, and it’s full of delicious recipes. Karen was kind enough to bring samples of her buttery mocha shortbread to the fair and it was amazing. The chocolate and coffee flavors gave the shortbread so much depth and the texture was so tender. A perfect cookie for Christmas. “It has butter in it, I’m not gonna lie,” Karen said. But ’tis the Christmas season, after all. Enjoy them!

Karen Covey’s Mocha Shortbread Adapted from The Coastal Table (Boston: Union Park Press, 2013) Karen uses Rhode Island-made Dave’s Coffee Syrup , winner of a 2013 Yankee Food Award to flavor her shortbread, but you can substitute any coffee- or mocha-flavored syrup if you can’t find Dave’s brand in your area. Total time: 40 minutes Hands-on time: 20 minutes Yield: 16 wedges (or 32 pieces) Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted 1/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted Pinch kosher salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar 2 teaspoons mocha-flavored coffee syrup

Coffee beans, for garnish, optional

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter. Add sugars and beat until smooth and well combined, another 1-2 minutes. Add coffee syrup and mix to combine. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture and blend until just combined. Transfer dough to an 8-inch springform pan (you can also use a rectangular pan lined with parchment). Press dough out to fill pan in an even layer (dough will be a bit shaggy and loose but that’s ok, just press it all into pan into a nice, even layer). Bake for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean (do not over bake). Allow to cool completely. Cut into wedges (or desired bite-sized pieces).

4. To serve, transfer pieces to a serving platter and using a microplane, grate coffee bean flecks over top of each square (if using).

Amy Traverso

Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.

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