A Quest: Chocolate Roll-out Cookies, Part 1

July 15, 2011 | 53 Comments »

I have a chocolate cookie recipe that’s okay, but I’ve never found one that just knocked my socks of.  So, for awhile now, I’ve been planning to try some recipes that have caught my attention. 

At first I was going to have a “bake-off”.  The idea was to make each variety and taste them side-by-side and see which one was best.  But really, taste boils down to personal preference, which is as unique as each person. So rather than a bake-off I decided to try each recipe myself and review it.

I’ve seen recipes from four different sources, The Decorated Cookie, Lila Loa, The Smitten Kitchen, and Bake at 350, that really interest me.   After reading great things about all of them, I was excited to give each one a whirl.  Hard job, eh, sampling four different types of chocolate cookies?  Hard work, but somebody has to do it!

I started with chocolate cookies from one of my favorite cookie books, Cookie Sensations, by Meaghan Mountford.  Besides writing books, Megs is also the brain behind The Decorated Cookie Blog. You can find her chocolate cookie recipe there along with MANY other sweet ideas.

I chose to rate {or discuss rather, because I hate “rating” things} each recipe on six characteristics: difficulty, prep-time, appearance, texture, taste, DECORATABILITY {I totally made up that word}, and to also add a few observations of my own.  This is what I learned.

 

Difficulty:  These cookies were EASY to prepare.  If you follow Meghan’s instructions, you’ll have no problem whatsoever.  I mixed the ingredients, chilled, and rolled. 

The actual dough tasted WONDERFUL.  Don’t judge me… I taste cookie dough.  I could lie to you and say I don’t but if you ever met me in person, my rear view would give me away, so I’d rather be honest. 

Anyway, I’m accustomed to working with soft dough, so when I first began rolling, it was a little more work than I expected, but within a few minutes the dough began to soften {which I would have REALIZED if I had flipped back a page and read Meaghan’s tips on chilling and rolling} and from that point on, it was a breeze.

I rolled in my usual manner, on top of parchment, periodically dusting with flour as needed.  Toward the end, the dough got a  bit sticky, but I popped it in the freezer for a minute, and all was well.

The recipe made exactly 31 medium {3-4 inch} cookies and one baby one for tasting, which was perfect because you always need a tester.

Prep Time:  It took me exactly one hour and 37 minutes to make these cookies from mixing to turning off the oven, including chill time.  Mixing took less than ten, it spent about 45 minutes chilling because I was so excited I couldn’t wait any longer.  The rest of the time was spent rolling, cutting, and baking.  I baked them exactly ten minutes and they were perfect.

Appearance:  The cookies were a very pretty deep brown color.  The tops were mostly smooth, and they had a nice decorating surface.

Texture:  I would call these medium.  They weren’t super soft or crispy.  They had a little bite toward the outer edges and a little “chew” toward the center, but I would not call them CHEWY.  These would be the perfect crowd-pleaser cookie because they aren’t too firm, but they are not too soft.

Taste:  This was a good cookie.  I prefer them undecorated, but that’s just me.  I thought they were wonderful fresh out of the oven.  My son gave them an enthusiastic thumbs-up, but what impressed me most was the reaction from my husband.  I’ve never baked a chocolate cookie that earned his approval, but this one did.  What’s even more interesting is that he liked them iced.  That NEVER happens.

My neighbor {another guy-pinion} also liked them.  He liked them enough, in fact, that he stopped in the middle of playing with his new WeedEater to tell me.

The best way I can describe the flavor is brownie-ish, which is kind of “DUH” considering they are chocolate, but seriously, these cookies remind me of brownie edges.

Decoratability:  These cookies are EASY to decorate.  They held their shape and had a good even surface area.  I also loved how beautiful the icing looked against the deep rich color of the cookie.

My observations:  Great recipe.  Seems like this Meaghan gal knows what she’s talking about…maybe that’s why she’s written two books!  Seriously, though, before I published anything, I talked about my results with Meaghan.  I got an A! They turned out exactly as they should have.

When I make these again, I will probably roll them a bit thicker than I did {a little more than 1/4 of an inch}.  These don’t rise as much as I expected and I’d have liked them to have a little more “beef”. However, I did learn from Meaghan, that the thicker these are, the more they spread, so keep that in mind when you plan.

Overall, I liked this recipe, and I will be making it again. To learn more about Meaghan, click HERE.  If you would like to try more of her recipes and ideas, visit her blog, The Decorated Cookie.

 

I hope you spend this weekend baking!  Try these out and tell me what YOU think!

 

 

Sweet Sugar Belle
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