Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Heart and flower chocolate cookies

Remember those homemade cookie dough Oreos I made a week or two ago?  I became (mildly) obsessed with the cookie portion of those Oreos.  They were SO good.  And easy.  Literally, insanely easy to make.  No mixer needed, they came together seamlessly.  And unlike so many other cut-out cookies, you don't need to chill the dough before rolling them out.  Just place the just-made cookie dough between two sheets of wax paper, roll it out to your desired thickness, and then -- get this -- just place those rolled-out sheets of cookie dough in the fridge (in order to keep mine flat, I put them on a cookie sheet before placing them in the fridge).  Seriously.  Then they're ready to let the cookie cutters do their work whenever you want them to.


Since the butter is melted instead of having to be brought to room temperature, you can make them as soon as you decide to on a whim, as I did.  Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching and I wanted to make some cookies.  I have no plans yet, but I assume that B and I will do something low key.  But of course there will have to be desserts.  And since I think I'm subconsciously trying to make up for not remembering if I made anything last year (and if I did, what it was....for more on that, see here), I've made a few.


I thought about icing these with royal icing, but they were so delicious on their own, and I was afraid that the royal icing wouldn't mesh well with their insanely rich chocolate flavor.  Instead, I drizzled them with a teeny bit of white chocolate for some sweetness and color contrast, and then left some plain and put sprinkles on some of them.

Rich Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies
Originally from Love & Olive oil, from these homemade cookie dough Oreos

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 ounces (1 cup) semisweet chocolate or chocolate chips, melted and slightly cooled
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark or Dutch-processed cocoa powder -- Since they were so good the first time I made them, I stuck with the dark cocoa powder (I used Hershey's special dark)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Decorations:

Melted white chocolate
Any sprinkles or colored sugar that you want to use

Directions:

In a medium bowl, mix together the melted butter and sugar until combined.
Whisk in the vanilla and melted chocolate.
Add the egg and whisk until incorporated.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda.
Stir flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, using your hands if needed to form a smooth dough, using your hands if needed to form a smooth dough.  I used a large whisk and it worked beautifully.
Divide the dough into two, and roll each piece to 1/4 inch thick between two pieces of waxed paper.
Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until firm.

Heat oven to 325F.
Line baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Cut out your desired shape using cookie cutters from the dough sheets.  I used a small heart and small fluted circle which looked like a flower.
Arrange on prepared baking sheet, leaving at least 1 inch between cookies.
Bake for 15 minutes or until cookies are set and just starting to darken around the edges.  Since my cookies were on the smaller side, I had to eyeball them a little.  I ended up baking them for around 9 minutes.  The dough is SO dark, I honestly don't think you'll see them "darken around the edges."

I waited for mine to cool, and then drizzled them with some melted white chocolate.
While chocolate is still wet, apply sprinkles or colored sugar.

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