This weekend we are going into full Christmas mode around here. Decorations will be pulled out of storage, lights will be hung outside and we’ll be going to pick out our tree! I can’t wait! We’ll probably even break out the Christmas music and let it play in the background to really set the mood. And of course, I will bake Christmas cookies! It isn’t the holiday season without Christmas cookies, right?
My favorite Christmas cookies are decorated sugar cookies. They’re fun, festive and colorful and though they can be time consuming, I always feel like the effort was worth it in the end. The other day I was perusing the Cook’s Illustrated website and came upon these chocolate butter cookies. I thought they might be a fun alternative to traditional sugar cookies so I wanted to test them out. I hoped that they’d turn out well and I could include them in my holiday cookie trays. 
The recipe is fairly straight forward, with one slightly unusual step – some of the butter is melted and combined with cocoa and espresso powder to form a paste before being added to the dough. CI says that this blooming of the cocoa and espresso intensifies their flavors so the cookies have great chocolate flavor. The dough was easy to roll out and cut into shapes. I did find that the cookies retained their shape best in the oven if I popped the cut shapes into the fridge on a baking sheet for about 10 minutes before putting them in the oven. The recipe instructs you to bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes but I really liked the texture at about 9 minutes. Just keep an eye on them as you definitely don’t want them to overbake.
My first bite into these cookies made me so happy – they were everything I’d hoped and more! Typically I can’t notice a big difference when I add espresso powder to chocolate recipes, but here I could definitely taste a difference. The chocolate flavor was complex and much better than most chocolate cookies I’ve had in the past. I decorated some of the cookies with the bittersweet chocolate glaze from the website (I didn’t realize how uneven my glaze was until I looked at the pictures – oops!), but I preferred the cookies plain. I didn’t like the glaze competing with my delicious chocolate cookies! I’ll definitely be making these and even decorating some with royal icing this holiday season. I am not going to reproduce the recipe on my site, but you can find it here and I definitely recommend giving it a shot!
Lemon Bars
Glazed Grapefruit Cake
Orange Sherbet
Meyer Lemon Pound Cake
Um, these look great. And they seem to be exactly what I’m looking for!! Now, royal icing…. is not my friend. Granted, I have had ONE experience with it, look for a hilarious looking blog soon
But I guess I should keep at it…?
Your cookies however, look GREAT!
Oh, these look like such fun. I must make these as they would be so pretty on the cookie trays…thanks. Stealing, right now, stealing this one. But then, you are used to me doing that here, right? LOL.
These look really delicious. I have been debating about what cookies to make for a all-day baking session next week. These are in the running!
I love the shape and frosting. Very pretty!
have fun getting chrismasfied this weekend – those cookies look amazing!
OK, I’m clueless. I loved how your frosting looked and then learned you’re disappointed in it. In my house this would be a complete success! I love how these look and you’ve got me hooked with the deep chocolate flavor.
These are so cool and unique looking~!
Thanks for the idea! I never really thought about chocolate cookies to decorate for Christmas, but everything is better with chocolate right? I’m so going to try these out.
Oh yum! Sugar cookies are my favorites around Christmas as well, and throwing chocolate in the mix just makes it that little bit better
I have the Holiday edition of Cook’s that this recipe is in and have wanted to try them… you’ve definitely inspired me to give them a try! Lovely photos, they look super yummy! :o)
Very pretty and festive, Tracey! I really enjoy seeing everyone’s decorating skills at work this time of year.
Beautiful cookies! Interesting note about blooming the chocolate and espresso… I’ll have to give that a try!
Beautiful cookies! Your glaze looks perfect! I love the effect that espresso powder has on chocolate treats. These, I am going to have to try.
the cookies look lovely!
Wow sounds amazing! i’d love to try this recipe out. i love butter/sugar cookies too because of their design and all, but sometimes its so hard to find one that also tastes really yummy! Hopefully this won’t disappoint!
I’ve really been wanting to try these. Glad to hear that they worked out really well. Might have to pencil these in for the week I’m on vacation.
Is anybody else having a problem with the link? I went to find the recipe and the link brought me to amazon.
@Cindy – Sorry about that, it looks like the link is broken. I’ll update the post with the recipe in the next day or two!