If you read our Valentine’s Day Cookie Gallery article, then you remember me writing about the brownie cut out cookies that Suzy Q used to make for me. These are a bit more rich and dense than our regular Sugar Cookie Recipe, and oh so delicious. With this brownie dough being so dense, it holds its shape really well, so it is great for those designs that must have sharp lines and clean edges. There is no need to chill this dough, just work it a bit after you pull it out of the mixer and you are good to go. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), room temperature
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons chocolate extract
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (we use King Arthur double dutch cocoa)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Preheat your oven to 350º F. In your stand mixer, cream together your butter, sugar, eggs and then turn your mixer off before you add the cocoa powder. Once you have the powder in your mixer, turn it to the lowest possible speed, so that you don’t end up covered in cocoa powder and sneezing it out for days. Trust me, I speak from experience. Ensure the wet ingredients are thoroughly combined so that your dough has consistent coloring.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet. The dough will be dry and will need to be worked together by hand. The mixing around and folding back over itself will help to further melt the butter and smooth the dough. We use a powdered sugar duster to make a mix of half cocoa powder and half flour to use while rolling the dough. You don’t want to use straight flour because it will change the color and straight cocoa is far too harsh of a taste.
Roll the dough to about 1/4″ thick and cut to your specifications. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place your brownie cut out cookies approximately 1/2″ apart. Depending on how large your cookies are, bake for 6-10 minutes. If the cookies look shiny in the center, they aren’t done yet. Try another minute. Experiment with a couple of cookies solo on a cookie sheet until you are confident in the cooking time.
Suzy Q and Mrs. K