Chocolate brownie cutout cookies

As I've mentioned before, I tend to dislike recipes that involve rolling dough out. I much prefer to just scoop and plop the dough straight onto the baking sheets with as little dough handling as possible. For the sake of pretty cookies however, it's an effort that I'll make.

Because it is the holidays, it's time for me to break out my festive cookie cutters to use. For this year's holiday cookies, I wanted to find a recipe that wasn't your traditional sugar cookie. They are indeed tasty, but a little on the boring side. After browsing through Pinterest for a bit, I came across these delicious looking brownie cutout cookies. Chocolate usually makes most things better, and these cookies were no exception.

Even better was the fact that the dough was quite easy to rollout. It initially was pretty sticky after first mixing it up, but after chilling in the fridge overnight, it was very manageable. It still needed a light dusting of flour on the cutting board and rolling pin, but it stayed together and didn't glue itself to the other surfaces.

Cutting out the shapes was easy too - for this recipe, you roll out the dough a little thicker than a traditional cutout cookie (about a fourth of an inch), and the extra thickness makes the cutout shape easier to transfer to the cookie sheet without falling apart.

After baking and letting them cool, the fun part is the decorating! Unfortunately, I was running short on time (was making these for a Secret Santa exchange) and only got around to decorate four of the cookies - one of each shape!

Had to stick with primary colors because that's all the frosting I had, but it was enough to decorate a tree, a stocking, a star, and a gingerbread man! These turned out great - nice and soft, yet sturdy enough to hold its shape. The dark cocoa made it so the cookies weren't too sweet and it tasted like a dark chocolate brownie.

Happy holidays everyone! May your festivities be full of delicious baking! :)

Chocolate brownie cutout cookies (makes about 40 cookies)
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

• 1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1½ cups (300 g) white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup (60 g) unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
• 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking powder

1. Cream butter in stand mixer on high for a few minutes until light and fluffy. 
2. Add in sugar and continue mixing on medium until combined. 
3. Mix in eggs, vanilla, and cocoa  until combined. 
4. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together in a separate bowl. 
5. Mix dry into wet mixture by hand until just combined (do not overmix). 
6. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in fridge at least one hour (can chill overnight). 
7. Preheat oven to 350F. 
8. Dust a cutting board and rolling pin with flour and roll dough out to about ¼ inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. 
9. Bake on cookie sheets for 8-10 minutes. 
10. Let cool and then decorate!