One of the things I love most about the holiday season is baking Christmas cookies with my children. I adore flipping through recipes with them, ooh-ing and aah-ing over all of the beautiful cookies. Of course, we have our traditional cookies that we bake every year, but it’s always nice to try out something new too. My daughter chose this one!
Dark-Chocolate Cutout Cookies
Martha Stewart Living, December 2012
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat together butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Reduce speed to low, and gradually add flour mixture. Divide dough in half. Form each half into a disk, and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm but still pliable, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Working with 1 disk of dough at a time, roll out to 1/4-inch thickness on lightly floured parchment. Brush off excess flour, transfer dough on parchment to a baking sheet, and freeze until firm, about 15 minutes. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters, rerolling scraps as needed. Transfer cookies to parchment-lined baking sheets, and freeze until firm, about 15 minutes (the freezing process keeps the cookies from expanding during baking). Bake 8-10 minutes for soft cookies and 12-14 minutes for crisp cookies. Rotate pans halfway through. Cool on baking sheets on wire racks. Makes about 45 cookies.
These cookies are so beautiful in their simplicity. If you want to take them up a notch, you can decorate them with royal icing and a little sanding sugar. Otherwise, they’re lovely just as they are – and incredibly delicious!
Check out some of my other favorite cookie recipes!
Easy Sugar Cookies
Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Classic Gingerbread Cookies
Molasses Crinkles
Chocolate Shortbread Trees
Happy Holidays!
Muncho Mom
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beautiful! love the simple powdered sugar adornments… thanks for the shout!
Thanks! They were a lot of fun to make. Happy Holidays!
Well, I can certainly see why your precious daughter wanted to do these, with all that yummy chocolate in them! Thank you for sharing this recipe with us!