Mocha Almond Crunch aka "Oriental Crunch"

photo needed

Recipe

It's all in the images above, but here's a transcription (modified slightly) if you can't read it:

1 cup butter

2 Tbl instant coffee granules

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 375

Melt the butter

Blend together butter, coffee, salt, almond extract, and vanilla

Gradually blend in sugar

Stir in flour

Stir in chocolate chips

Press into ungreased baking pan - you should be able to spread it out over an entire a standard cookie sheet and it'll be about one cm thick

Press slivered almonds on top

Bake 20-22 minutes, or until the almonds on top have started to brown

When cool, break into irregular-sized pieces

My Notes

This is one of my go-to cookie recipes because all of the ingredients are things I can keep in the house for long periods of time without them going bad. It's also one of my favorite recipes because they just taste so good! It's one of the very few foods I like that has coffee in it.

Story

The recipe I have says it came from my Nana's old Good Housekeeping cookbook. I tried Googling it to see if there was a better explanation for its somewhat problematic original name, but the best I could find was this, from someone else who also got this recipe from their grandmother: "Don’t ask about the name. I don’t. Just know that the flavor combination–almond, chocolate, coffee–is absolutely fantastic. And the cookies themselves are super crunchy. Kind of like a nutty, crispy chocolate chip cookie bar that you might eat with coffee, except the coffee is already in there, too." https://thewordybaker.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/oriental-crunch/