Hey there, for much of us it looks like it’s going to be a pretty frigid weekend which = indoor time, which in my book = baking, so I’m sending you off with these wonderful Chocolate Shortbread Cookies that pair particularly well with a steaming cup of tea or coffee. Happy dunking!!

I’ve had my fair share of kitchen flops lately but happily these cookies, which were supposed to be the filling for a chocolate babka that would just not rise (yeah, I recently watched the Seinfeld babka episode ‘cause what else are we supposed to do?) came out better than I could have ever imagined, raising me up from the depths of my babka despair!! Lol!

No, but seriously, these little squares are pretty much perfection: intensely chocolate and not-too-sweet with that wonderful melt-in-your-mouth quality that only a really good shortbread can deliver.

After you’ve mixed the dough together, you shape it into a rectangular block, on two crisscrossed pieces of plastic wrap—

And then roll out

Eventually cutting the dough into 2-inch squares (if you’re annoyingly precise like me, you use a ruler!)

Before baking you prick a few holes in the cookies with a fork ,a la traditional shortbread.

The cookies bake up crisp and buttery and full of deep chocolate flavor.

I really, really think you should whip up a batch this weekend, especially if the January doldrums are hitting you hard!

‘Cause baking flop or not, I promise that they will go a long way to keeping everybody smiling!😁😁😁

Have a delicious and safe one, my friends!!

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Makes about 20 cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes, including rolling out; Bake Time: 15-18 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups (160g) unbleached, all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling out

• ⅔ cup (57g) Valrhona unsweetened cocoa powder (or the best you can find)

• ⅛ teaspoon (1g) baking soda

• ½ teaspoon (3g) fine sea salt

• 11 tablespoons (155g) unsalted butter, cut into cubes and softened

• ½ cup (100g) sugar

The Recipe

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and sea salt and set aside.

2. Use an electric mixer to combine the butter and sugar together, beating on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula as needed, anywhere from 2-4 minutes. Add in the dry ingredients and mix in on low speed, scraping down the sides, until the dough comes together.

3. Make an X with two large sheets of plastic wrap and turn the dough out onto the center. Pat it into a rectangular block and then loosely wrap the dough, leaving some slack on the each end. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to about ½-inch thickness. Now you can either chill the dough for up to 3 days or proceed to Step 4.

4. Preheat oven to 325ºF and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

5. Lightly dust a board or surface with flour. Unwrap the dough and discard the plastic wrap. Place the dough on the board and lightly sprinkle it with flour. Flour the rolling pin as well. Now, starting from the center, roll out the dough into a large thinnish rectangle, aiming for the thickness to be about ⅜-inch. As you roll, keep lifting the dough and sprinkling a little flour beneath it to keep it from sticking to the board.

6. Use a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut 2-inch squares of the dough and transfer them to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them at least an inch apart. Prick each cookie with the tines of a fork a few times. Gather together the scraps and re-roll out, cutting out more cookies until dough has all been used up.

7. Bake one sheet at a time, turning front to back midway, for about 15-17 minutes, until cookies feel dry to the touch and have puffed up and fallen. You can’t really tell by the color since they will be dark brown. Transfer the sheet to a baking rack and let cookies cool on the sheet on the rack for a few minutes, then transfer to the rack to finish cooling completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. It is rumored that they last a week this way. Ha!!

Enjoy!

Note: Recipe adapted from A Good Bake by Melissa Weller. I simplified the techniques—the original recipe is a little fussy.