Chocolate Shortbread Cookies with White and Dark Chocolate Chunks
Last year, at a holiday cookie baking party, a friend made Alison Roman’s Salted Butter and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread. AMAZING. If you have chocolate chip cookie needs you should try them. The combo of brown sugar, butter, saltiness, and chocolate chunks is magic. My shortbread cookies follow that theme but are all-chocolate for your all-chocolate-cookie-needs.
These ultra chocolatey shortbread cookies get a boost of intensity from black cocoa and a combination of white and dark chopped chocolate. And since they are slice and bake you can make them ahead to have ready whenever a craving hits. Make some to have later today – see the "plan ahead” notes below – and make another batch to store in your freezer for future cookie needs.
P.S. Those chocolate chunks are a big part of this cookie. So use good chocolate.
Photo by Daniel Marks
Chocolate Shortbread Cookie Recipe
Yield:
Approximately 16 cookies
If you want more cookies (respect), you can easily double the recipe. Just divide the dough in half and roll into two logs so it’s easier to handle, and give them two minutes more in the oven if you’re baking 2 trays at a time.
Difficulty:
Easy
Plan ahead:
The cookie dough needs chill for 3 hours or overnight before slicing and baking.
Ingredients:
140 grams All Purpose flour
20 grams Black cocoa or Dutch Process cocoa
¼ tsp table salt
121 grams (1 stick + 1 TBSP) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into cubes.
65 grams granulated sugar
65 grams light brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
75 grams white chocolate, chopped
25 grams semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Flaky / course kosher salt or sea salt, for sprinkling
Instructions:
Sift flour, cocoa, and salt together into a medium sized bowl, pressing through any clumps of cocoa. Whisk thoroughly to combine. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the room temperature butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Beat for 3 or 4 minutes on medium speed until well combined and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and mix until combined.
Take the bowl off the mixer and add all of the flour cocoa mixture at once. Give it a few stirs by hand before putting it back on the mixer to avoid flour flying everywhere once you turn the mixer back on. Mix on low speed until a dough just forms - it will be crumbly - and you don’t see any dry spots of flour or cocoa. Don’t overmix. Stir in white and dark chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface and gather together into a ball. It can be helpful to use some parchment or plastic wrap to press the dough together. Roll dough into a log about 2½ inches thick, flattening the ends as much as possible. See image below.
Wrap the log tightly in plastic wrap and chill until very firm. Around 3 hours. Chilling overnight is fine too if that works better with your schedule.
(You can also freeze the dough at this point. Wrap a piece of foil tightly around the plastic wrap and place in freezer. When ready to use, defrost overnight in the refrigerator.)
I used parchment to help me press the crumbly dough together and roll into a log. Plastic wrap works too.
Once the dough has chilled, preheat your oven to 320° F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using a serrated knife, slice cookies into ½ inch thick rounds and place on baking sheet 1 inch apart. They may break apart a little while slicing, just press them back together, all will be fine.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. They will look underdone but will firm up while cooling. Don’t over bake. When in doubt, underdone chocolate is always better than overdone.
Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle with flakey salt if desired. Let cool for 5 minutes in pan then transfer to cooling rack.
Enjoy with some milk, a latte, or straight up!
Store in airtight container at room temp for about a week. Or tightly wrap and freeze.
