A question about a recipe: Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies

just to be clear, espresso powder is not finely ground coffee; it's brewed espresso that's been freeze-dried, so strictly speaking it doesn't contain the actual beans.

Good catch sdebrango!

I agree with Niknud, I think that grinding espresso would result in a gritty cookie. There is no liquid in the recipe so you could not brew strong coffee and add it would alter the recipe. I would suggest getting some of the instant coffee to keep around, I use it almost every time I make something chocolate the combination of the coffee and chocolate is heavenly,

I'm not sure that would work very well. The reason that espresso powder or starbucks VIA works well is that it is microground (which I'm not sure you could do with a home grinder) and designed to dissolve. Of course, if you don't mind a little grit factor.... The other thing you could do is to brew some extra strong coffee (or use a little water and a lot of instant coffee if you have it) and cut back a little on the wet ingredients.