Healthy Mocha Crinkle Cookies AKA Cappuccino Crinkle Cookies

This is a healthy cookie recipe.  It is very coffee like, very chocolate like, and very light tasting.  The cookies come out puffy and looks hard, but when you go to pick it up, the cookie can be easily crumbled and you’ll be surprised at how soft they are. 

This recipe was on the Better Homes and Garden website.  They named them cappuccino crinkles, but since I had instant mocha on hand, they are now renamed Mocha Crinkle Cookies.

The fun part about this recipe is dropping sticky heaping spoonfuls of dough into a bowl of sugar and coating them with sugar and then rolling them in between the palms of your hands and then coating them again in sugar so that they bake up nicely.  It seems like there is a lot of sugar in these cookies but when you go to eat one (one?? You’ll probably end up eating three…four…five…okay I’m not going by experience……just saying..) you’ll notice that they are not that sweet at all.  I was kind of hoping they would be sweeter but they are actually really tasty.  It’s like eating coffee.. yes eating coffee… :)

P.S.  These were two points each.. if you’re doing Weight Watchers and you’re curious. 

Cappuccino Crinkles Recipe was from the Better Homes and Garden website. My notations are italicized.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter (no substitutes), softened (I used unsalted)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (I used light brown, what I had in the pantry)
  
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules (I used a packet of instant Starbucks VIA Mocha)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 egg whites
• 1/3 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• I wanted to put mini chocolate chips into the batter..but I forgot.  It would have went awesome with the whole mocha theme…but doh! my thinking failed me. =/ So if you make this recipe… try it with mini chocolate chips! 

Directions

1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  Beat butter in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the brown sugar, cocoa powder, coffee granules, baking soda, and cinnamon. Beat until combined, scraping sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat in egg whites and yogurt until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in remaining flour with a wooden spoon.

3. Place granulated sugar in a small bowl. Drop dough by heaping teaspoons into sugar and roll into balls between the palms of your hand (will be very sticky until you coat it with sugar).

4.  Roll again in sugar. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

5.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are firm. Transfer cookies to wire racks and cool. Makes about 32 (I made about 38 from the batter).