Chocolate butter cookies & coffee

Go straight to the Chocolate tipped butter cookies recipe

Chocolate butter cookies are really easy to make and chocolate itself is one of my favorite baking ingredients and if chocolate shows up in a recipe I definitely have to try it. The recipe is without hard to get ingredients and the method doesn't take a lot of time. The most important quality of this recipe, apart from scrumptious cookies, is that it is spot on for kids. I bake these cookies with my daughter on and on again and we are never fed up with it.

The cookies satisfy all the tastes in our family (not only mine). They are rather crumby in comparison to other kinds of cookies but they just simply melt in mouth. Oh my God, and they are so good with coffee.

One day when I was baking butter cookies my daughter came up with the idea that we could use plasticine moulds to bake different animal shaped cookies. We washed the moulds very carefully and tried our luck. The result was pretty good because the dough for this butter cookies doesn't contain baking powder or baking soda and the baked cookies therefore keep the shape. The only problem was that animal shaped moulds are to deep. Some of the cookies weren't baked through. So, if you try this, use only "flat" moulds.

The other way to make chocolate tipped butter cookies is to take a piping bag with a large star nozzle. In this case the dough must be soft enough to pipe it out. To get the dough with a right softness it is very important to soften the butter at a room temperature. Vanilla extract also helps in the process of softening the dough. Add a little bit of milk should you fail to get the dough through the nozzle.

Easy recipes for kids 1. Easy recipes for kids 2.

Easy recipes for kids 3.

Chocolate tipped butter cookies recipe - one of easy recipes for kids:

Makes: 8

INGREDIENTS:
- 115g or 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
- 3 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
- 150g or 1 1/4 cups plain flour
- few drops vanilla essence
- 75g plain chocolate, chopped

- Preheat the oven (fan oven) to 180C/350F/gas 4. Lightly grease two baking sheets. Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and cream them together until very soft and fluffy.
- Gradually add flour and mix well. Add vanilla essence and make a soft dough (add a little bit of milk if required to soften the dough further but just a little).
- Spoon the mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe small circles on prepared baking sheets. Leave enough space between two cookies for expansion (an inch is enough).
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, until pale golden. Leave to cool slightly before lifting on to a wire rack. Leave the butter cookies to cool completely.
- To melt chocolate, first chop or break it into small pieces. Place the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the water). Stir until the chocolate melts (about three minutes). Make sure that no droplets of water come into contact with the chocolate as they can cause it to become lumpy or grainy.
- Dip a each butter biscuit halfway into the melted chocolate, place the cookies on wire rack until the chocolate is firm.
- My daughter is crazy about chocolate, so we sometimes dip whole butter cookies into the melted chocolate. It takes more time to dry them up and makes sticky fingers to the delight of my daughter.

Print this Recipe

Use this handy conversion calculator

Method (step by step):

	STEP 1: Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Lightly grease two large baking sheets. Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and cream them together until very soft and fluffy.
	STEP 2: Gradually add flour and mix well. Add vanilla essence and make a soft dough (add a little bit of milk if required to soften the dough further but just a little).
	STEP 3: The dough is ready.
	STEP 4: Spoon the mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe small circles on prepared baking sheets. Leave enough space between two cookies for expansion (an inch is enough).
	STEP 5: Bake for 15-20 minutes, until pale golden. Leave to cool slightly before lifting on to a wire rack. Leave the biscuits to cool completely.
	STEP 6: To melt chocolate, first chop or break it into small pieces. Place the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl shouldn't touch the water). Stir until the chocolate melts, about three minutes. Make sure that no droplets of water come into contact with the chocolate as they can cause it to become lumpy or grainy.
	STEP 7: Dip each biscuit halfway into the melted chocolate, place the cookies on a wire rack until the chocolate is firm.
	STEP 8: My daughter is crazy about chocolate, so we sometimes dip whole cookies into the melted chocolate. It takes more time to dry them up.

Our coffee choice for chocolate tipped butter cookies:

cappuccino
espresso
cafe latte
Turkish coffee

Useful baking tips:

After a day or two these butter cookies become soft, lose the taste and start to crumble. Try to eat them up on the day of baking (not a problem in our family to be honest).
If you want to store them, put cookies between layers of wax paper in an airtight container and store in a cool and dark place.
Butter cookies are very fragile, so be careful when you take them off the wire rack in case that they are stuck.
If you want to make cookies with plasticine moulds it is absolutely necessary to wash them carefully with water and soap or in a dish washer before use.
Chocolate melting alternative: You can melt chocolate in a microwave. Place the chopped chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave, stir, heat in 20 second increments, stirring each time, until the chocolate has melted. Make sure that no droplets of water come into contact with the chocolate as they can cause it to become lumpy or grainy.

Good to know:

Baking cookies is a great way to spend really quality time with your kids. It is also a great way to help your children to make new friendships and boost their confidence.
This recipe belongs to a group of easy recipes for kids.
Chocolate's botanical name is "Theobroma cacao", which means "food of the gods" (how true...).
Chocolate contains natural stimulants that can make you feel happy and energized.
The healthy version of chocolate (bittersweet) contains antioxidants which may prevent cancer.
Cocoa beans grow in pods on cocoa trees. The pods look like large almond shaped squash and are the size of American football balls.
It takes about 200 beans to make just one kilo of chocolate.
Chocolate melts in our mouths because cocoa butter's melting point is just below human body temperature.
Dark chocolate is the chocolate with cocoa (solid) content of between 35-100%.
Milk chocolate contains at least 10% chocolate liquor, as well as sugar, vanilla, lecithin and at least 12% of milk solids.

Shortcuts