Like a good superhero movie, you don’t have to know much about the original butter cookies recipe to enjoy this standalone sequel: chocolate butter cookies. 😉 This darker (but not in a villainous way!) version is just as buttery and melt-in-your-mouth soft, but with the addition of incredible chocolate flavor. One reader, Paula, commented: “These are really tasty and fun to make. I used a Wilton 8B tip and when they were baked and cooled, I half-dipped them in Ghirardelli dark chocolate melting wafers. Very good and will make again! ★★★★★“
These Chocolate Butter Cookies Are:
Buttery, chocolatey flavor, like chocolate sugar cookies Melt-in-your-mouth soft like snowball cookies Piped with a piping tip like chocolate swirled meringue cookies A 1-bowl cookie recipe Ready to be an extra festive dessert with a melted chocolate dip, cherries, and/or sprinkles
This cookie dough comes together easily with only 9 ingredients. You need an electric mixer for the dough, plus a piping bag and large piping tip (I use this one) to pipe the cookie dough.
Ingredients in Chocolate Butter Cookies
How to Pipe Butter Cookies
SUCCESS TIP: Start small. Begin by placing just a little bit of dough in the piping bag so you can determine if it’s creamy enough to pipe. If it’s too thick, it’s impossible to pipe, and you’ll have to put the dough back in the bowl and add a little more milk. Doing a test with a small amount of dough is a lot easier than filling the whole piping bag and then having to transfer it all back out again! SUCCESS TIP: The dough is very thick and stiff, so the first few cookies you pipe will be the hardest. Don’t give up! It gets easier as you go along, as you handle the piping bag and the dough becomes more malleable.
Best Piping Tips to Use
The cookie dough is thick, so it’s imperative to use a large piping tip with about a 1/2-inch opening. (That’s big!) The smaller the size, the harder it will be to pipe. I highly recommend an open star piping tip, but I actually use Ateco 849 which is a closed star tip. The opening is so large that it still works wonderfully! The popular Wilton 1M works too, but you may need to add more milk to the cookie dough to thin it out because this piping tip is smaller. Remember, the more milk you add, the longer you need to chill the shaped cookies, or else they will over-spread in the oven.
Ateco 849 Wilton 8B Ateco 826 or Ateco 827
Don’t forget your piping bags, too! (Disposable or Reusable) By the way, these piping tips and a set of bags would be a great holiday gift for any baker. I always include them in my Holiday Gifts for Bakers guide!
Another Success Tip: Chill the Shaped Cookies Before Baking
Whatever design you pipe, I highly recommend chilling the piped cookies on the baking sheet for an hour before baking. Without this chill time, the cookies will lose their piped shape. We need the dough to be soft enough to pipe, but then that soft dough would spread way too much in the oven, so we need to chill the cookies before baking to firm them up a bit. I promise it’s worth it. Refrigerate the shaped cookies for at least 1 hour, and up to 1 day. (If chilling for longer than 1 hour, cover them.) If you need to speed things along, you can start chilling them in the refrigerator for 20 minutes; at that point they will be solid enough that you can pick them up and transfer them to a smaller plate (if freezer space is an issue) and freeze them for another 20–30 minutes.
Some Decorating Options
Sprinkle with coarse sugar or festive sprinkles before baking. Place a maraschino cherry in the center of each cookie before baking. Dollop 1/2 teaspoon raspberry (or other flavor) jam into the center before baking. Dip cooled cookies in melted chocolate, add sprinkles, and let set. Dip cooled cookies in melted white chocolate, add crushed candy canes, and let set.
The refrigerator will help set the chocolate dip quickly. This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page including:
Candy Cane Kiss Cookies Easy Cookie Icing Lemon Crinkles Gingerbread Cookie Bars Apricot Cream Cheese Thumbprints
and here are 75+ Christmas cookies with all my best success guides & tips.
