Can I use hot chocolate mix as a substitute for espresso powder in a recipe? It’s a really good cookie recipe, but I’m not a fan of espresso or anything, can I use hot chocolate mix or something else as a substitute?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “adding hot chocolate mix to coffee“
I would suspect that a hot chocolate mix would have sweeteners and some form of creamer or dried milk products whereas the espresso powder would not. You could however use powdered unsweetened cocoa or dark chocolate as a substitute.
Well, it depends on the cookie. If coffee is the main flavor profile, then no, there is no substitute. But if it’s a chocolate cookie and we’re talking about, say, a tablespoon of espresso powder, I’d just skip it and do the recipe w/o any substitutions. It’ll be fine.
Espresso often gets used in cookie recipe as a flavour enhancer – it is not enough coffee to give it a coffee flavour but it does enhance the other main flavours of the cookies (usually the vanilla or chocolate flavours)
It is a bit like salted caramel or chocolate – the salt does not make the caramel or chocolate taste salty but it does enhance the caramel or chocolate flavour
As for espresso powder – I have only seen cookies or cake recipes that use real espresso shots
I woulda thought you simply leave the espresso powder out for a less enhanced flavour cookies
Espresso powder full dissolves and flavours the liquid you add it to – so by leaving it out is not going to cause an imbalance of dry/wet ingredient
for example – if you leave the espresso powder out of the “recipe” for a cup of coffee – you simply end up with a cup of coffee with no coffee flavour. It is still be the same liquid consistency. Same as the salt example I gave earlier
if it was real espresso shots you were eliminating – you would need to substitute with liquid to maintain the dry/wet balance