Chocolate and spice make good company on a winter baking afternoon. These cookies pair cocoa and dark chocolate chips with cinnamon and Fireside, our bold black tea blend with warming spices and chili.
The extra pinch of cayenne is optional. Choose whether to include it for a little additional heat.
Fireside Mexican Chocolate Cookies
Yield: About 24 cookies.
Allow 30 minutes to chill the dough and 9–11 minutes of baking per batch, plus preparation and cooling time.
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened; 3/4 cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup granulated sugar; 1 egg; 1 tsp vanilla; 1 1/2 cups flour; 1/2 cup cocoa powder; 1 tbsp very finely ground Fireside tea; 1 tsp cinnamon; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 1/4 tsp salt; pinch cayenne, optional; 1 cup dark chocolate chips.
Instructions
- Cream butter and sugars; beat in egg and vanilla.
- Whisk dry ingredients separately and gradually add to the butter mixture. Fold in chocolate chips.
- Chill dough 30 minutes.
- Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets and bake at 350°F for 9–11 minutes.
Prepare the tea before mixing
Use very finely ground tea directly in the dough, not brewed liquid. Remove hard whole spices or woody botanicals and grind only suitable ingredients very finely. Do not leave coarse, hard pieces in the cookies.
Measure the prepared tea for the recipe. Replacing it with brewed tea would change the dough’s liquid balance.
What Fireside adds
Fireside contains Assam black tea, black tea, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, chili, and pure extract. It contains caffeine.
The cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips provide the recipe’s chocolate. Fireside supplies the black tea and spice character; its Mexican-chocolate inspiration does not mean chocolate is listed as an ingredient in the tea itself.
Fireside already contains chili, so omitting the optional cayenne does not make the cookies spice-free.
Give chilling its place in the plan
Chill the dough for 30 minutes between mixing and scooping. Read the full method before you start, and leave room for multiple baking batches if needed.
Serve with a simple drink choice
A plate of cookies and a few drinks can be enough for a small visit. Let guests choose water, tea, or another familiar drink instead of turning the serving suggestion into a required pairing.
Check the current full tea ingredients and the labels for butter, flour, egg, cocoa, and chocolate chips against guests’ needs. Do not assume baking removes the tea’s caffeine or that a particular chocolate makes the recipe suitable for every dietary preference.
Keep the coastal gathering uncomplicated
We hand-mix our teas in small batches on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, with a kiss of Pacific Ocean air. Bringing a blend into a familiar cookie recipe is another way to enjoy that tea, without needing a large holiday spread.
If sharing the cookies, keep ingredient information with them. A short note naming Fireside helps the recipient know which blend was used.
Shop the featured tea
Explore Fireside for the blend used in these cookies and its current product details.
