Chocolate Covered Butter Cookies Recipe

Basic Butter Cookies (Double  Dough Batch):

2 cups softened butter (I use salted, if you use unsalted add a 1/2 tsp of salt to recipe)

1 1/3 cup of granulated sugar 

3  lg. egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 3/4 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Cream butter & sugar (and salt if needed) at high speed.  (Use a large bowl this is a double batch of dough)

3. Add vanilla and yolks. Beat til smooth.

4. Turn mixer down to slow speed and slowly add flour, just til mixed in.

5. Separate dough into 2 or 3 manageable sized balls, for rolling out.

6. Lightly flour your counter and roll out dough  to about 1/4″ and cut your shapes.

7.  Place on Parchment lined baking sheet, and bake for approximately 12-13  minutes.  (if you don’t use parchment cookies will cook a minute or 2 faster).

8. Let cookies rest a couple minutes, before removing from baking sheet, to avoid breakage.

Chocolate Coating:

The chocolate used on these cookies is basically just a thick ganache.

8 oz. semi sweet baking chocolate squares

2 1/2  tbs of milk

1.  Chop the chocolate into smaller pieces to speed melting.

2. Combine milk and chocolate in microwavesafe dish.

3. Heat chocolate in microwave for 30 seconds, then stir with fork.  Repeat, until the chocolate mixes smoothly (it will still be a little thick).  Add a little milk if you need, but do so sparingly.

4. Let Chocolate sit for a couple minutes, just til not steaming hot.

5. Place cookie flat down on chocolate.  With smaller cookies, twisting while lifting may give you a nice swirled effect.  Larger cookies will probably require the chocolate be spread out with icing spatula or the back of a spoon.  (You can sprinkle nuts or crushed candy cane on at this point if you like).

6.  The cookies will need several hours to “set-up”.  I usually leave them overnight.

The chocolate will not be enough to cover all the cookies, as it is a single batch recipe and the dough is a double recipe.  I usually serve the plain butter cookies along side the chocolate covered ones as shown here, or use half the dough for another cookie style.