hazelnut espresso cookies

My sister Katie's birthday was this past week and it was a great excuse to do some more baking from Everyday Food. Back when I did a bit of shopping at Antipasto's Di Roma I stumbled upon instant espresso powder. It's not the easiest thing to find in supermarkets so I immediately picked up a jar remembering that the Hazelnut Espresso Cookies recipe specifically called for it and advised not to substitute instant coffee in it's place. Well, since buying it I've been making myself some instant espresso when I need a boost - meaning I'm depleting my supply quickly. The Hazelnut Espresso Cookies needed to be baked... Fast!

So the first step in baking these cookies was to roast the hazelnuts and then remove the skins. Seems simple enough, but what a task it was! Two cups of hazelnuts made for at least 80 nuts in total and my fingers were numb attempting to remove all the skins. Owen wasn't particularly patient with the process either. Hazelnut skins were flying all over the kitchen and all over me. With the number of times Owen dropped his Sophie the Giraffe on the floor I managed to contaminate Owen and his toys with nuts. I realized that this would be the time to find out if Owen had a nut allergy. Luckily he's fine, so for now there isn't any worry about that. Long, arduous, painful and messy. All I could think was that I love my sister and all this hassle was going to be worth it in the end.

The eventual making of the cookies was very simple and straight forward. I loved the aroma of the addition of the espresso powder into the cookie batter. And with all the stress I had on Friday attempting to complete these cookies with a fussy baby and uncooperative pug, I felt I deserved lots of spoonfuls of cookie batter for snacking.

The first batch was a complete over done write-off. I managed to bake the cookies on the wrong rack resulting in burnt bottoms. As well as accidentally leaving them in a minute too long while I tried to find something to entertain Owen in order to remove them from the oven. With so much at stake for the final batch, I corrected my mistakes and nailed the second batch.

Owen had to be a part of the photo of the cookies since every single shot had him grabbing for them (or wire rack, I can't tell which was more interesting to him).

I have a weakness for all cookies. I don't think there is a flavour combination I don't enjoy so I'm biased when it comes to them. However, the whole ordeal of prepping the hazelnuts is not worth it for these cookies. I actually don't understand what is so great about this recipe that it needed to be included in this cook book. Martha has a strictly cookies book so I believe this recipe would have been great in there. These cookies are very adult in nature and being a coffee addict and cookie monster, you'd think I'd be pumping up Hazelnut Espresso Cookies. They are delicious but I won't be baking them again anytime soon unless I'm feeling particularly masochistic.