Halloween Black Cocoa Cookies
No decorating skills? No problem. With the help of some cookie cutters and rich black cocoa you can create the spooky Halloween cookie-scape of your dreams. Candy googly eyes optional.
The cookie recipe is pretty straightforward, but you will need to refrigerate or freeze the dough both before and after cutting them out (this helps them maintain their shape when baked), so figure out how to make room in the fridge ahead of time.
These cute cats and bats taste like Oreos, so pour yourself a glass of milk for dunking and let’s start baking.
Black cocoa can be found on Amazon or on King Arthur Baking.
Photo by Daniel Marks
Halloween Black Cocoa Cookie Recipe:
Yield:
10-12 cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutters
Difficulty:
Easy, the soft dough just requires chilling time to make it baker-friendly.
Equipment:
Cookie Cutters (These are the ones I used)
Candy googly eyes (optional)
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Ingredients:
36 grams black cocoa powder, plus more for dusting the cookie cutters
3 TBSP (42 grams) unsalted butter, melted
5 TBSP (70 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
110 grams (½ cup packed) light brown sugar
¼ tsp coarse kosher salt (or ⅛ tsp fine salt)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp cinnamon or espresso powder (optional)
188 grams all-purpose flour
Adapted from this recipe by Bake from Scratch
Instructions:
Note: This dough is easiest to work with when cool and firm. If, at any point it becomes challenging to work with. Stop what you’re doing and transfer the dough to the refrigerator or freezer to firm back up for 15-30 minutes.
Whisk together black cocoa and melted butter in a small bowl. Let cool.
With a stand mixer or electric beaters, beat butter, brown sugar, and salt together at medium-high speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of bowl to make sure everything is incorporated as needed. Beat in the cocoa mixture. Add egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add flour, and beat until a smooth dough forms and no spots of flour are visible. Turn dough out onto a piece of plastic, pat into a disk, wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Place 1 TBSP black cocoa in a shallow dish or plate. Put the chilled dough on a piece of parchment and roll out to ⅛-inch thickness.
Cut out shapes by dipping the cutters into the cocoa and press into the dough leaving ½-inch between cuts. Peel up the unused dough and set aside for more cookies. (Again, if the dough is soft, chilling the rolled out dough will make it easier to peel up the excess dough.) Place the parchment with the cut out shapes on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes or freeze for 15.
Meanwhile, re-roll the cookie dough scraps on a piece of parchment to cut more cookies. If the dough becomes too soft to work with, press a second piece of parchment on top of the rolled out dough, and refrigerate or freeze to firm back up.
Bake cookies for 10 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through so they cook evenly. They will be slightly soft, let cool completely on pan to crisp up.
If you plan to add eyeballs, the easiest way is to melt a few chocolate chips, let the chocolate cool slightly so it’s no longer runny, dip a toothpick into the chocolate, apply to the back of the eyeball and place on the cookie. Let the cool and dry completely before serving.
Photo by Daniel Marks
