Chocolate Sugar Cookies For People For The Holidays
The holiday season is officially here! The time has come to decorate, go shopping, and find the perfect gift for each person (and horse) in our family. And I am sad to say I am the only horse lover in my family. I have a couple of friends from work who are just as horse crazy as me, but for the most part, I don’t have a lot of horsey friends.
Shopping would be so easy if all my family and friends were horse people. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would be easy!
But even though most of my friends and family are not horse people, I have a super fun treat that I like to make for them all, because they do like to eat cookies. And this time of year, I get to do a lot of baking. And I like to experiment when it comes to baking. I think it is the DIY in me. And I have a recipe that I have played with to make my own. Instead of the traditional sugar cookie, I like to make chocolate sugar cookies.
They are so pretty, and easy to make too. And they are delicious! They have just the right amount of crispness to make the perfect sugar cookie.
And to make them even better, I found a horse cookie cutter on Amazon last year that I used to make some horse ornaments for my Christmas tree and I thought it would be fun to make some actual cookies with the cookie cutter.
I can make a batch of these cookies in about 2 hours time. And that includes everything from making the dough, chilling, baking and decorating. This makes a very nice homemade gift to give and looks great on the table. One day I hope to have grand babies that I can sit down with and decorate an entire stable full of horse sugar cookies! But for now, I am happy to bake and decorate the cookies myself, and I wanted to share the recipe with you.
Chocolate Sugar Cookies
What You Will Need
- 3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened to room temperature
- 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
What You Will Do
In a large bowl add the butter and sugar. Mix these ingredients on medium speed until they are creamy. Then add your vanilla and egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients so far have been blended well.
Now add in your cocoa powder and mix some more. Then add your flour. If you want to get fancy, you could sift the flour and cocoa powder to make sure there are no lumps. But I have found by adding the cocoa powder with a spoon to the mix, I haven’t had to sift, and I haven’t ended up with any cocoa lumps in my dough.
Next add in the salt, and mix all the ingredients one more time.
After everything is mixed, and you have a beautiful chocolaty dough, chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour. This step is really important. Be sure to chill the dough for at least an hour, otherwise it will be too sticky to work with if you are planning on using cookie cutters.
Once an hour has passed, it’s time for the fun! Preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C). And while your oven is heating up, it’s time to cut the dough.
When working with the dough, I like to use the cocoa powder to dust the surface of where I will be working, typically my cutting board. The cocoa powder works just like flour, and will keep the dough from sticking to the surface. And it also looks prettier than white flour dusting the surface of the chocolate dough.
Roll out the dough to about ¼” thickness, and cut out your shapes. I found this Dala horse cookie cutter on Amazon for about $6.00. And after doing a quick search for Dala horse cookie cutter, I found it even cheaper at Scandinavian Designs.
Carefully remove the excess dough from the cookies, and then transfer them to your baking sheet. Again, you can get fancy and use parchment paper, or you can just move them carefully onto an ungreased cookie sheet. (This is what I do) I have never lost a horse yet using this method, I am just careful when I transfer the cookies.
Then stick them into your preheated oven and bake for about 11 minutes. Half way through their baking, I would turn the cookie sheet, to make sure they bake evenly on all sides, all cookies.
With the cookies being chocolate, it is difficult to tell if they are ready. But trust me, after 11 minutes, they are ready to be taken out. After you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool for a few minutes before moving them to a plate, or cookie rack.
Allow them time to fully cool, and then it’s time to get creative with your decorating!
Horse Cookies For The Holidays
You can leave them plain, or outline them with frosting, or cover them completely. The decision is yours. For mine, I just used store bought frosting to add a little bit of accents to my cookies.
I think they are beautiful, and they are really tasty too!
So if you are looking for a nice treat to add a little equestrian into your holidays, and love chocolate, you should really try this recipe. It is a fun project to work on with your family, especially during the holidays!
And once you are done baking your people treats, why not make a batch of horse treats for your horses too? You can find a lot of different yummy recipes for your horses by checking out the recipe’s page here.
Happy baking!