Rudolph Chocolate Shortbread Cookies, a fantastic family-friendly Christmas treat. The chocolate shortbread cookies are rich and intensely chocolatey, with a good snap, and they stay crunchy for days. Using a reindeer cookie cutter makes them look so festive and full of Christmas cheer. So easy to make and so delicious!
Another delicious cookie recipe to add to my homemade Christmas treats list. I do love a good cookie during the festive season, with shortbread cookies and gingerbread men cookies being firm favourite in our house.
But these cute Rudolph Christmas cookies are so yummy, they are definitely making it to the top of the list this year. They have a rich and buttery shortbread base to which cocoa powder was added for some chocolatey touch to an already delicious cookie base.
It might sound like a cliche, but using good quality cocoa powder makes such a difference! You get a much more intense and deeper flavour without using any melted chocolate whatsoever.
Shortbread biscuits usually have a good crunch, even though they are so buttery, they almost melt in your mouth. And these chocolate shortbreads do not disappoint, they are really snappy and they keep their texture as long as they are stored well.
You can go more elaborate with these cut-out reindeer cookies, and decorate them to your liking, but I believe in the power of simplicity, sometimes you get the best effect from simple things.
I only added some red sprinkles for Rudolph's nose, but you can omit them altogether if you don't have any, they still still look impressive as it is!
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Ingredients used
- flour - plain regular flour works best for this recipe, we do not need any leavening agent, as we want the cookies to have a good snap
- butter - it has to be soft so it can cream well with the sugar
- icing sugar - or confectioners' sugar, you can use caster or granulated sugar too, but the fine icing sugar make the cookies more uniform
- egg yolk - do you use a whole egg, as that would change the texture of the cookie dough
- cocoa powder - sieve it well to avoid any lumps in the dough
- vanilla extract - or any other extract of your choice
- red sprinkles - optional, to decorate the reindeers' noses
Step-by-step photos and instructions
- in a large mixing bowl, sift the icing sugar, and add the soft butter
- use a hand mixer to beat them together until creamy
- add the egg yolk and beat again
- sift in the cocoa powder and add the vanilla extract
- use your hands to knead everything into a dough
- roll the dough onto the work surface, and use a reindeer-shaped cookie cutter to cut out cookies
- rework the dough until it's all used up
- arrange the cookies onto a baking tray, working in batches, to bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius ( 350 Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes
- remove the cookies from the oven and leave to cool completely
- decorate the reindeers' noses with red sprinkles
Expert tips
Adding cocoa powder to the dough makes it a lot denser than a regular shortbread cookie dough, I find that there is no need to chill the dough before rolling it and baking the cookies.
The dough will be quite crumbly, and you can add a splash of cold water as you would do for a shortcrust pastry if the dough is not coming together well. Every brand of flour is different, some flour would be denser than others.
The cookies will firm well once they cool down completely. The baking time may be different depending on the size of the cookie cutter used. Larger cookies will take longer to bake, so I would keep an eye on the cookies after 9 minutes.
I used a bit of honey to glue the red sprinkles on the reindeers' noses, and that did the trick, but if you are worried about them falling, you can also use icing/frosting to keep them in place well.
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Rudolph Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 120 g plain flour ( 1 cup)
- 100 g icing sugar (¾ cup)
- 30 g cocoa powder ( 2 tbsp)
- 100 g butter, soft ( ½ cup)
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- red sprinkles for decorating (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit, 160 fan oven).
- In a large mixing bowl, add the soft butter, sift in the icing sugar, and use a hand mixer to beat them together until creamy.
- Add the egg yolk and beat again.
- Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, add the vanilla extract and use your hands to knead everything into a dough.
- Dust some flour onto the work surface, and roll the dough thinly.
- Use a reindeer-shaped cookie cutter to cu out cookies.
- Arrange them onto 2 or 3 baking trays, and bake them into the preheated oven, working in batches, for 10 minutes.
- Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool down completely.
- Stick the red sprinkles onto the reindeers' noses using melted chocolate, buttercream or honey.
Video
Notes
- Adding cocoa powder to the dough makes it a lot denser than a regular shortbread cookie dough, I find that there is no need to chill the dough before rolling it and baking the cookies.
- The dough will be quite crumbly, and you can add a splash of cold water as you would do for a shortcrust pastry if the dough is not coming together well. Every brand of flour is different, some flour would be denser than others.
Nutrition
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