Take your most delicious buttery cookie and pair it with your most indulgent chocolate cookie and you have my Chocolate Butter Cookies. These are simply magnificent and have a rich, buttery, chocolate flavor you and your family will swoon for!
I think that butter cookies are my favorite kind of cookie. I even like making butter cookies. I think it’s because there is just about nothing you can bake with a lot of butter in it that doesn’t smell heavenly as you cook it. I even like raking or pressing my little fork in them right before I bake them to remind myself, Yes, this is a butter cookie, and soon, I will be eating it.
So, when my daughter suggested combining my love for butter cookies with my love for chocolate, I thought, Why didn’t I think of this?
And the result is the sweetest, most buttery, most chocolate-y cookie you’ve ever tasted. I am quite proud of this recipe, and you’ll be proud of your finished product because everyone can get behind a Butter Cookie, especially a Chocolate Butter Cookie.
The Secret to Perfect (Chocolate) Butter Cookies
Making Chocolate Butter Cookies (or any butter cookies, really) is kind of like making scones or pie crust. All of these baked creations require a lot of butter. That means you’re going to have a very buttery dough that can spread, sink, or never rise unless you keep your ingredients cold, cold, cold. Chill everything if you want a perfectly baked butter cookie: the bowl, the butter, the flour… even your hands (just run them under cold water).
Also, measure, measure, measure. Although when cooking savory goods you can kind of do a “dash of this” and a “guesstimate of that”, sweet baked goods are quite another thing entirely. When you have pie crust, scones, or buttery baked goods, you must, must, must measure (in baking school they made us weigh even the tiniest amount of baking powder on a real baker’s scale with weights on one side!!). Why is measuring so important with baking Chocolate Butter Cookies? Because the chocolate and butter will make these melt-y enough; you do not need the added melting agent of excess sugar, which liquefies in heat, of course!
How do I prep and store these cookies?
Just about any cookie dough will freeze well that doesn’t contain whipped egg whites (like meringues and marzipan). So, you can freeze butter cookie dough up to three months. You can make these ahead and refrigerate the dough just two to three days. You can freeze baked butter cookies two months before quality suffers. Baked cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature (let them cool completely first) for up to a week.
Serving Suggestions
Serve these delicious little butter sensations with your favorite tea, coffee, or, for a special treat, one of my Delicious Grasshopper Milkshakes.
Chocolate Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 7 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Start by creaming the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, which should take about 2 minutes using an electric mixer. Preheat the oven to 300°F.
- Gradually add the vegetable oil to the creamed mixture while continuing to beat, then mix in the vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt.
- Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until a stiff dough forms. If the mixer struggles, switch to a dough hook or knead by hand.
- Roll the dough into small balls, about 1 tablespoon each, and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, spaced apart to allow for spreading.
- Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until they flatten slightly and show crinkles on top.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
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