Coffee-Cinnamon Cookie Fail!

Here is a story of a recipe fail.  I'm not going to point you to the recipe because I don't know if the recipe wasn't well tested or my crazy substitutions were what caused the cookies to be so bad.  But I felt like sharing, so here you go.

Making Dough

On Monday when I was home for lunch I threw together batter for coffee-cinnamon cookies.   I made it ahead of time because it said the batter was runny and need to chill for a couple hours to stay together.  Sounded good.

I didn't have the maple syrup needed so I substituted with honey.  And I didn't have enough honey left in the open jar and I didn't feel like opening the new jar of honey I had just bought at the farmers' market.  I figured the amount of honey would would be ok since I prefer not-too-sweet cookies.  I thought about tasting the batter to see if it was sweet enough, but I was grossed out by the raw egg so I skipped it. The batter was really dry, completely opposite of the way the recipe was described.  I thought it might hydrate a bit as it sat.

Baking It Up

When it came time to make the cookies, we had to search all over the living room to find the cookie scoop.  It's one of Sonny D's favorite things to play with right now.  We found it inside a big metal cookie tin.  The dough was really stiff so we flattened the balls and hoped they would spread in the oven.

Scooping out cookie dough.

The cookies didn't puff up at all in the oven.  I think it needed more baking powder and maybe something acidic to react with, like maybe yogurt.  Plus more liquid in general. 

Baked cookies. 

We each had a cookie after they cooled a bit.  They were bland and boring, certainly not sweet. And no coffee flavor at all, so after Sonny D went to bed I whipped up a coffee drizzle glaze in order to give them some sweetness and the coffee flavor I was looking for. 

Coffee-glazed.

As they cooled overnight, the cookies seemed to get more dense and rock-like.  By this morning, they weren't very good at all, but I threw one in Sonny D's lunch bag and packed two for my morning snack.  I ate those two cookies, more out of boredom than because they were good.  And I somehow ate three of these not-very-good cookies at lunch today with a mug of tea; they're sitting like rocks in my belly.

Moral Of The Story

My advice is that you should ensure you have all of the ingredients before you start making a recipe.  Or at least read through the recipe and come up with a plan for substitutions.  Or maybe test it to see if it's actually going to be decent! 

Any Recommendations?

These coffee cookies were an absolute dud.  Does anybody have a tried-and-true espresso/coffee cookie recipe?  A family favorite?  I'd prefer something that is solely coffee-flavored, no chocolate.