Cookie Mania
My favorite way of celebrating the Christmas Season is baking cookies. This year I’ve abandoned my traditional favorites in order to try new ones. There are so many great treats out there, thus far I’ve made lemon drops, a spice cookie, biscotti, and a chocolate butter cookie. Today I’m going to feature the chocolate butter cookie. I found the recipe on line at GroupRecipes. Here are links to some of my other favorite recipes: Pecan Squares, Cardamon Shortbread, and Mosaic Biscotti.
Chocolate butter cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup baking cocoa
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 2-1/2 tbsp. shortening, divided
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate chips
- sprinkles for decoration
How to make it
- In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in vanilla.
- Combine flour and cocoa and add gradually to the butter mixture.
- Spoon the dough out on a floured surface. Roll out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with a 3-inch cookie cutter. For Valentine’s you can use a heart-shaped cutter, for Thanksgiving a pumpkin, for Christmas a star, etc.
- Place cookie cut outs 2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375F oven for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, heat white chocolate chips and 1-1/2 tbsp. shortening until melted. Stop and stir every 35-40 seconds.
- Dip both sides of cookies into melted white chocolate mixture (refer to pictures), or spread melted white chocolate on both sides of cookies using a small rubber spatula. . Place dipped cookies on parchment paper. Sprinkle with seasonal sprinkles (in this case I used red Valentine’s ones). *Note: if the chocolate mixture stiffenes, warm it up again.
- In another microwave-safe bowl, heat the semi-sweet chocolate chips and remaining 1 tbsp. shortening until melted, using the same process. Drizzle this mixture over the cookies using a small spoon. Let the chocolate dry somewhat, then transfer cookies to the fridge in batches for the chocolate to complitely harden. As it hardens, carefully remove cookies from parchment to a storage container.
Note: This recipe is amazingly easy to make and roll out and I imagine that it would be a fun one to do with kids. When it came time to decorate I found the directions for melting the white chocolate chips to be lacking. My first cup of chips ended up hard after a few rounds in the microwave so I made a second batch in a double boiler finding the same results and adding a couple tablespoons of half and half to it. That did the trick. Don’t add to much cream or the chocolate won’t get hard.
