Brownie Roll Out Cookies

(image from Smitten Kitchen)

More experimentation for my son's upcoming first birthday party. Instead of a cake we're doing a build your own ice cream sandwich station with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, and these from Smitten Kitchen.

They really do taste like brownies in cookie form. I tried them smeared with a little vanilla ice cream and they were absolutely heavenly.

The best part is that they require nothing but the bare baking essentials. To quote Deb,

There’s no sea salt in them, no melted 70 percent chocolate. There’s no brown butter or vanilla bean pulp or pinch of espresso powder. There is not a single thing in them we’d probably jazz them up with today, and instead of fighting this simplicity, I encourage you to revel in it.

Woooo simple cookies!

Recipe copied and pasted for your convenience:

Brownie Roll-Out Cookies*
Recipe from Deb’s mom

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup lightly salted butter, softened (Deb note: I don’t really see “lightly salted” much these days, so I used one stick salted, one stick unsalted)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used the “good” stuff–Droste or Galler–but I can assure you that my mother only used Hershey’s growing up, so your choice)

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Whisk dry flour, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter. Cut into desired shapes, brushing extra deposits of flour off the top. (It does disappear once baked, though, so don’t overly fret if they go into the oven looking white.) Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes (the former for 1/8-inch thick cookies, the latter for 1/4-inch cookies) until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffed.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

* According to my mother’s recipe, they’re called chocolate sugar cookies but I do not feel that it does them justice.