Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Kristin and I have a new tradition of sending each other baked goods for special occasions, so as her birthday approached, I asked her whether the baby was craving anything in particular. She said chocolate and sugar were high on the list these days.

Chocolate and sugar? Oh, I can certainly work within those parameters!

I went home and poured over some recipe books. I wanted to try something new, but I wanted to make something from scratch (no cake mix this time - I wanted to mix some good, old-fashioned batter!). And it had to be something that would travel well and withstand some potential heat in either AZ or FL.

I wasn't having much luck until I came upon a recipe that I had printed out and saved years ago but never got around to making: Chocolate Sugar Cookies.

Uh, chocolate? Check. Sugar? Check. Perfect!

These are sort of a chocolate version of Mike's Nana's roll-out cookies. They're a thinner, crispier sugar cookie. They're very light, and a nice summer treat when you want something chocolaty but not too heavy.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening, sugar, and egg. Stir in syrup and melted chocolate. Sift flour, salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon; add to creamed mixture. Chill 1 hour.
3. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on a well-floured pastry cloth. Cut into shapes.
4. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes.

Source: allrecipes.com

My notes:

1. While I think these are good, I personally prefer a thicker, chewier sugar cookie. Mike prefers them like this. To each their own! If you're a thin, crispy kind of cookie person, these are definitely for you. Next time, I might try to make them a little thicker and cook them the same amount of time to see if they come out a little chewy.

2. The recipe says to bake them for 10-12 minutes. I found that 9 minutes was plenty in my oven. They get overdone very easily, so keep a close eye on them.

3. Kristin informed me that these traveled very well! I lined a container with wax paper, layered the cookies in and stuck paper napkins between each pile, so they wouldn't bump into each other and break too much. Then I topped it off with a couple of paper towels to cushion the top, and sent them off.

4. This batch of cookies made me realize that I really need to invest in some non-holiday cookie cutters. My only two options were stars and cats. Pretty pathetic.