Place butter and sugar in your bowl. I use regular, salted butter and omit the additional salt in this recipe. (Ask me how much I love my glass KitchenAid bowl. So so much.) Cream it together until it’s nice and fluffy. Properly creamed butter and sugar actually does make a difference in your cookies! It should beat fast for a full 1-2 minutes at least. Then in goes some vanilla and an egg. Just whisk some cocoa powder and flour together. The original recipe also calls for 1 teaspoon of espresso powder. I omitted that, but you can certainly add it if you have some.
Then add those dry ingredients into your wet, a few spoonfuls at a time until they are well mixed. Yum. That’s it! Such a quick and easy dough. When I do chocolate cookies, I use cocoa powder to dust my rolling surface. It’s actually better to mix a few spoonfuls with some flour and use a combo of the two. I am using straight cocoa here because basically I was too lazy to walk the 6 feet required to get to my flour jar. For real. I am in love with my Roul’Pat; I use it for rolling out just about everything! Pat our your dough and give it a sprinkle of flour/cocoa powder on both sides and roll it out to about 1/4 inch. I usually roll my dough out first, and then slip that Roul’Pat in the fridge or freezer before I cut my cookies. It’s a lot easier than chilling the unrolled dough and quicker too.
Once it’s firm, cut your shapes. I bought these particular cookie cutters from William-Sonoma, but these are similar. And they are a true test for a good cut out cookie recipe. This one held it’s shape perfectly. Bake the cookies for about 8-10 minutes. Similar to our sugar cookies; you can under-bake and have super soft cookies, or bake longer for thinner, crisp cookies. Frost with your favorite sugar cookie frosting, or dip them in Glace Icing or sprinkle with sugar before baking (or in my case, just leave them plain!)
Now stay tuned Monday for the cutest cookies I have ever made. Really. Ever.
