Chocolate Butter Cookies are piped cookies that bake oh-so-buttery and chocolatey. These will be instant favorite Holiday Cookies with their melt in mouth interiors and just perfectly crisp exteriors.
These cookies taste so delicious just as is, but you can absolutely jazz them up with sprinkles, melted chocolate, nuts and more. Pipe them with a large piping tip, that way the centers will bake melt in your mouth soft.
If you love to bake with chocolate, you will also love this Whipped Chocolate Shortbread recipe. Speaking of shortbreads, this whipped Shortbread Cookies recipe is a popular recipe on the blog that you need to check out!
Find all Christmas Cookies on Greedy Eats at one place.
Why you will love these cookies:
- These are made with pantry staple ingredients
- It is a one bowl recipe
- Looks so good and festive on Holiday trays
- These cookies are what chocolate and butter dreams made of!
Ingredients and Substitutions:
Making this cookie dough is very similar to making a butter cookie dough. The only difference here is we are infusing this dough with cocoa powder to create its chocolate version.
Now as cocoa powder tends to dry out the dough, to compensate for this, we will add just a splash of milk to make the dough creamy and pipeable. Let us quickly check out, what you will need to make this dough:
Butter: Butter is an inevitable base when making butter cookies. Make sure to use room temperature butter, that easily makes a dent when you press it with your thumb. It shouldn't be extremely melty. When you attempt to bake cookie with butter that is too soft, your cookies are more likely to over spread.
Sugar: We are using confectioners' sugar or powdered sugar in today's recipe. While you can easily use granulated sugar, but in my experience butter cookies bake so much better when made with powdered sugar.
Cocoa: We generally opt for natural unsweetened cocoa powder if we are adding baking soda in the batter, which is a base. This base reacts with acid in the natural cocoa. When baking powder is used is a recipe you add dutch processed cocoa. But since there are no leaveners involved here, you can opt for any cocoa powder. Just make sure it is not sweetened.
Egg: Make sure to use room temperature egg in your cookie dough. Room temp. egg mixes well with all the ingredients. Thus your cookies will bake with a perfect texture.
Espresso Powder: Now this is one ingredient that I blindly add whenever I am making a chocolate dessert. Be it Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Cookies, Chocolate Muffins, Chocolate Mug Cake. You name it. Why do I do it, you'd ask. Because coffee enhances the flavor of chocolate many folds. Try it and thank me later! You will not taste any coffee in your cookies, promise!
While this ingredient is optional as well. If for some reason, you want to skip it, it can totally be done.
How do you bring this chocolate cookie dough together:
Like a simple butter cookie dough we will cream butter and powdered sugar together until these both ingredients get super light and fluffy.
You can beat them using a stand mixer or even a handheld mixer works for this. But I prefer a stand mixer, since you don't need to worry about spillage and this way the dough comes together hands off.
Once the creamed mix of butter and sugar gets ready, we add in the egg and flavorings. At this point I also add in the coffee. Coffee can also be added in last mixed into milk.
We can warm the milk slightly up in microwave. That way coffee dissolves easily into the milk and then into the dough.
After this all the dry ingredients such as flour and cocoa (that you will need to sift first) are added in the dough. In the last, milk is added so that a creamy yet stiff dough can be formed.
How to pipe cookies:
Once the cookie dough has formed, fill it into your piping bag fitted with a large piping tip. Apply pressure and start piping cookies onto a lined baking sheet.
You might notice that the first few cookies are hard to pipe. But as the warmth of your hands touches the piping bag, dough gets more pipeable. So don't give up yet.
But if you notice, even after piping a few cookies, the dough is quite stiff, you may need to add more milk to this dough. So begin with filling just a little amount of dough in the bag first.
Once you know the dough is of perfect consistency, you can fill in more.
Which Piping Tip is best here?
Any large piping tip like an open star tip works best here. The cookies will be easier to pipe and the shapes are sure to look pretty. Also the cookies piped with large tips are less prone to burning.
Here is a small list of options that you can choose from
- A closed star tip like - Ateco 849
- Ateco 826
- Ateco 827
- Wilton 8B
- Wilton 1M
But you will need to remember that for easier piping choose a tip that's got about a ½ an inch opening at its mouth. Don't end up adding too much milk to the dough to allow it to pass from narrow piping tips. This can cause the cookies to overspread as they bake.
What kind of cherries to use?
I have used candied cherries halves, the ones that do not come in syrup. I stuck them on my cookies after baking. If you wish you can also used canned cherries from syrup. Just make sure to add them to cookies before baking.
Expert Tip: Chill the piped cookies before baking.
Once the cookies are piped, you will need to chill them up till they get super firm. This will allow them to bake without spreading too much.
Now if freezer space is an issue for you, you can chill your piped cookies in the refrigerator form sometime and then in about ½ an hour your cookies will be firm enough for you to touch and shift them to a smaller plate. Place the cookies in that small plate and chill in the freezer for about 30-40 minutes more in the freezer.
If you liked these Cookies give it a star review. Do tell me in the comments below, how did this turn out for you!
And don’t forget to share your creations with me on Instagram at #greedyeatsblog Let's connect on Pinterest and Facebook too!
Recipe
Chocolate Butter Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Hand/stand Mixer
- 1 Piping Bags
- Piping Tip
- Cookie trays
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Butter (unsalted and at room temperature)
- 1 and ¼ Cups Confectioners' sugar
- 1 large Egg
- 2 teaspoons Pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups All purpose flour
- ⅓ cup Unsweetened cocoa powder (dutch processed or natural both work)
- ⅛ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Espresso Powder
- 2 Tablespoons Milk
Toppings:
- 16 whole Candied Cherries
Instructions
- Make sure to make room in your refrigerator for one baking tray and in freezer before making the dough and piping the cookies. These cookies need to chill before baking and if you chill the dough prior to piping, it will become too stiff to pipe and won't easily squeeze out of the piping bag.Line 1 or 2 cookie trays (as needed) with parchment paper and set aside.
- Now in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and confectioners' sugar together till they get very light and fluffy, for about 3-4 minutes on med-high speed.
- Next add in the egg and vanilla too. Beat for about a minute on high speed. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as required.
- Keeping mixer on low, slowly add in sifted flour, salt and cocoa powder. Turn the mixer to med-high and beat till the dough comes together. Now mix espresso powder in warm milk till it gets mixed well and pour that in the mixing bowl.
- You want the dough to be creamy but not too soft or runny. So don't be tempted to add a lot of milk to it. Now in a piping bag, fitted with a large piping tip spoon just a few tablespoons of dough to test if the dough is pipeable.
- If you are able to pipe cookies, add more dough to the pipping bad and continue to pip cookies. But if the dough is hard to squeeze out of the bag, add about ½ a tablespoon of additional milk to the dough.
- Remember the dough might appear stiff, so first few cookies can be hard to squeeze. But as the dough warms up slightly with the warmth of your hands, the task will get easier. Therefore, don't add too much milk in the dough at a time.
- Refrigerate piped cookies for 20-25 minutes and then you can lift them up using a spatula and transfer them on a larger plate to chill them in the freezer to make them extra firm.Chill them in the freezer, then transfer back to parchment lined cookie tray. Keep some space between each cookie to allow them to spread..
- As the cookies chill, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Bake the cookies for about 12-14 minutes or till they appear set on the edges. If you pipe smaller cookies, they will get baked in around 12 minutes.
- Once baked, allow to cool on cookie trays for about 4-5 minutes and then transfer on a wire rack to cool completely. Press candied cherry halves on each cookie as they are cooling.
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