Bittersweet chocolate cookies: a recipe

Bittersweet chocolate cookies: leaves, not trees

Another dessert recipe.

Is it too much for you?

I swear, I have made a whole bunch of other things to eat this week. We do not subsist solely on brownies and cookies.

I asked my Facebook followers to help me decide if I should make the Nutella cheesecake brownies or these chocolate cookies. They overwhelmingly voted for the brownies, but I felt I had to be fair to the cookies.

Especially since I just got these cute harvest-themed cookie cutters: pumpkins, turkeys and leaves.

The shapes seemed pretty obvious to me. However, we had a couple of plumbers in our house the day I made these and they thought they were balloons, chickens and christmas trees, respectively.

Right. Because nothing says "Happy Fall!" quite like chickens and balloons.

 

Next week I will get back into main-dish territory, but for now, enjoy these yummy chicken cookies.

(This recipe is featured for Snacktime Saturday at Young Nesters and Crunchy Farm Baby.)

Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies from Cooking Light

The original recipe calls for adding icing highlights to the cookies. I couldn't be bothered but if you're so inclined, follow the above link for the icing ingredients and instructions.

Additionally, recipes such as this one which call for rolling the dough out to a uniform size are the reason why I got the Joseph Joseph adjustable rolling pin that you see in the above photo. You just screw on the appropriately sized guides on either end and -- voila! -- perfect depth all the way around. Easy peasy!

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt


Directions

Place the sugar, butter and oil in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and egg; beat until well blended.

Whisk together flours, cocoa, and salt. Add the flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed just until flour is incorporated.

Place half of dough between two sheets of plastic wrap; roll to a 1/4-inch thickness. Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Place dough (still wrapped in plastic wrap) on a baking sheet. Chill 45 minutes or until firm.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Working with one half of the dough, use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Bake cookies one sheet at a time on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (keep remaining cookies chilled). Bake at 375° for 9-10 minutes or until set. Cool on pan 5 minutes, then remove cookies and finish cooling on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

(This made about 3 dozen cookies for me, using 3-inch cookie cutters)