Sweet - Cookies - Mocha Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies

This little gem is from my mother's cupboard, specifically a beautiful book entitled Absolutely Chocolate - irresistible excuses to indulge (yep, no kidding!) that's going at the top of my "Books to Liberate From Unsuspecting Victims" list. It's quite tasty.

So anyways, page 16, Mocha Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies. I hope the name makes your mouth water - it should. It's a delectable cookie recipe, using mainly butter, sugar and flour as the main ingredients (no eggs). This produces a chewy, moist cookie with a rich espresso/dark chocolate taste. The sugar sprinkled on top also melts and makes the cookies crispy - especially around the edges (yumyum).

Ingredients:
9oz (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp table salt
10oz (1.5 cups, or 3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 tbsp instant espresso powder (or 4 tbsp instant-coffee granules, crushed)
1 cup confectioners' (icing) sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1.5 cups semisweet chocolate chips
extra granulated sugar for dipping - about 1/4 cup should suffice

Assembling the dough (takes about 15 mins):
-The simplified steps:
-Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together in a bowl (whisking is usually the best).
-Then mix the butter and espresso powder until it's smooth (electric mixer is great for this).
        -To have room temperature butter you can (obviously) leave out the butter for an hour or so until it       softens, or, if you're in a hurry you can microwave it for about 30 seconds, making sure to check every 5 sec or so to make sure it hasn't melted.
-Add both sugars and mix again until smooth.
- get yourself a spoon or spatula, and start mixing in the flour-mix, about a quarter at a time, until fully incorporated
-add the chocolate chips and make sure they're evenly distributed
-and voila, you're done

Baking (about 12 mins):
-preheat oven to 350F
-if you have a cooling rack, take it out and line it with paper towels
-place some granulated sugar in a bowl (flat bottom is good)
-line 2 baking trays
-scoop out bits of dough - if using a tablespoon, you'll get about 24 cookies, 12 on each pan, whereas with teaspoon sized scoops you'll likely get twice as many
-BEFORE putting them on the trays, mold them into a flat(ish) disk and press the top into the sugar, then place sugar-side up on the trays. These cookies SPREAD to about twice their size so be sure not to crowd them!
-bake 12-14 mins, until the edges begin darkening (this time it took 12 minutes for me, so be sure to check nearing the end)
-once done, take out of oven, and once cool enough (the book says 2 mins, I waited at least 5 else the cookies were prone to breaking) move to cooling rack. The paper towels are important, because these cookies are very buttery, so it's necessary to soak out as much excess butter as you can, else they'll be oily when cooled.

And that's it. Super easy recipe, and so far quite delish.

Points to Remember:
-cookies are very buttery - need to drain excess fat by cooling on paper towels after baking.
-cookies spread to twice their size in the oven - make sure to leave room on the trays for that!
-start checking on them at the 12-minute mark to make sure they don't burn.