Every year I gift tins full of my baking for Christmas. There’s always some kind of chocolate variety of cookie, and this year I wanted something easy yet delicious. This cookie dough is perfect: you can make it ahead, shape it into logs, keep it in the fridge (or freezer, if longer than a few days) and simply slice and bake when in need of fresh cookies. Their sandy texture crumbles like a sablé, but the process is like a typical chocolate cookie.

Double Chocolate Slice-and-Bake Cookies

Recipe adapted from Food52

Yield: Roughly 36 cookies

Notes:

Since the dough needs to be cold to slice-and-bake, you will need an extra three hours prior to baking once you assemble the dough.

When measuring your flour and cocoa powder, try to use scant measurements. The original recipe called for this and I found the texture of these cookies to be perfect. To get scant measurements, you should spoon fluffed flour and fluffed cocoa powder into the measuring cups, then level with the edge of a straight knife. To fluff the flour and cocoa powder, simply swirl it around with a spoon or whisk before measuring.

It’s important to work this dough as little as possible to maintain the sandy-like texture.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 11 Tbsps (or ½ cup plus 3 Tbsp) unsalted butter at room temperature
• ⅔ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ tsp fleur del sel (or ¼ tsp) salt
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• Heaping ¾ cup bittersweet chocolate chips (or 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into chocolate chip-sized bits

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, sift flour, cocoa, and baking soda together.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter on medium-high until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes).
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add sugars, salt, and vanilla extract. Beat until well-incorporated, another 2-3 minutes.
4. With the mixer turned off, add your sifted flour mixture. Be careful and use the absolute lowest speed for the first few mixes. If you notice a lot of dust, try pulsing the power from off to the lowest setting a few times until the flour mixture starts to incorporate into the butter mixture. Continue to mix on the lowest setting until the flour mixture is barely incorporated. It will look very crumbly.
5. Add the chocolate chips and mix until just incorporated.
6. Dump the dough onto a work surface and shape into two equal-sized logs, roughly 1 ½ inches in diameter.
7. Wrap logs tightly in plastic and put in the fridge for at least 3 hours before baking, or up to 3 days. Alternatively, the dough can be frozen for a couple months.
8. Preheat oven to 325°F.
9. Remove logs from fridge and slice into roughly ½ inch thick slices, and arrange roughly 1 inch apart on a baking sheet. Tip: when slicing, rotate the log every 4 slices or so to maintain its round shape. If any of the dough breaks apart as you cut, simply push it back together on the baking sheet – they’ll come out a bit misshapen but will be equally delicious.
10. Bake for precisely 12 minutes (don’t overbake!) and allow to cool on the baking sheet on a cooling rack.
11. Enjoy! Mine kept well once baked for at least 4 days in an airtight container, although I’m sure you could get more mileage out of them (if they last!).

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