Chocolate Cutout Cookies (Stamped Cookies #30) by Attainable Sustainable

Chocolate Cutout Cookies (Stamped Cookies #30) - made dough March 4, 2023 from Attainable Sustainable

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Embossing dust

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and sugar until combined. Add egg and vanilla and mix to combine.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture on low speed until just combined. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out dough between two large pieces of parchment paper to 1/4" thickness. Chill another 30 minutes.
4. Lightly brush embossed rolling pin with embossing dust, shaking off any excess. Remove top portion of parchment paper and roll over dough with embossed rolling pin. Cut out into desired shapes. If dough is too soft, return to refrigerator to chill another 30-60 minutes. Refrigerate or freeze cut out cookies for at least an hour.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space cut cookies. Bake 7-9 minutes or until edges are set. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

You can tell from the pictures that I had mixed success with this recipe. The impressions didn't hold nearly as well as the brownie stamped cookies, especially after being baked. Even worse, you can see some "burned" spots in the design. No, I didn't burn the cookies. That's from the embossing dust where I used equal parts cocoa powder and flour to dust the embossed rolling pin and cookie stamps I used to stamp out this dough.

The darker bits was the cocoa powder turning darker during baking. When I'm embossing or stamping chocolate cookie dough, I don't like to just use flour or powdered sugar because it sometimes leaves a whitish residue that doesn't bake out. But as you can see, the cocoa powder in this particular base didn't fare much better.

Which is a shame as these actually tasted pretty good. They're not as pretty as they taste but the flavor was good, the texture was soft with just the slightest crispness on the outside shell. I might have to try this again and skip the cocoa powder in the embossing dust and just sparingly use the flour or powdered sugar to prevent sticking.