chocolate cookies/ vanilla cookies

Made chocolate sugar cookies and vanilla sugar cookies following these recipes:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar for rolling

Instructions

1. Cream together butter and brown sugar with a mixer until fluffy, about 5 minutes.
2. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition, and then vanilla.
3. Combine cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix well.
4. Refrigerate dough for one hour.
5. Using a cookie scoop, scoop dough and place into granulated sugar, roll around to coat. Place sugar coated dough on lightly greased or parchment lined baking sheet, space cookies 2 inches apart. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 9-10 minutes.
6. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

http://chocolatechocolateandmore.com/2014/02/chocolate-sugar-cookies/

Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Recipe
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 6 mins
Recipe Description
For an additional flourish, decorate these no-roll sugar cookies with homemade Colored Sugar (recipe follows)
or Sugar Cookie Icing.
Serves: Makes 4 1/2 dozen or 27 (2 cookie) servings.
Ingredients Nutritional information
(amount per serving)
Calories: 171
Sodium: 146mg
Fat: 7g
Carbohydrates: 25g
Cholesterol: 33mg
Protein: 2g
Fiber: 0g
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons McCormick® Cream of Tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 eggs
2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract | Substitutions
Additional sugar, for rolling | Substitutions
Directions
1 Mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Set aside. Beat sugar and butter in large bowl with
electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Gradually beat in flour mixture
on low speed until well mixed.
2 Refrigerate dough 2 hours or until firm.
3 Preheat oven to 400°F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in additional sugar or Colored Sugar. Place 2 inches
apart on baking sheets.
4 Bake 6 to 8 m

http://www.mccormick.com/Recipes/Dessert/Vanilla-Sugar-Cookies

They turned out well! I didn’t roll them in sugar, but chose to frost them instead. It takes about 4 hours for it to harden.

The chocolate ones were very chocolatey — glad I didn’t use all special dark cacao, only about 1/3 special dark and 2/3 regular unsweetened cacao. Maybe could have used a bit more sugar.

Initially the vanilla ones were a bit bitter — maybe due to the cream of tartar. But after 12 hours, they mellowed out.

I bought a brand new box of baking soda to make these — I think it helped keep the quality high.

I don’t think I mixed the dough too well — there were pockets of rawness in some of them.

Note: It does take a while to cook cookies, don’t start at 9 PM unless you are fine with sleeping at 12 AM!

Grace said that the standard 1 tsp of salt is a bit too much in recipes. She says to reduce it to 1/4 -1/2 of a tsp salt.

note 20141218:

made snickerdoodles with coarse kosher salt — bad idea! The salt doesn’t dissolve as well, so once in a while, you get a bite that’s too salty!

-Isaac