Christmas Red Chocolate Chip Cookies: Cooking Up a Hooley in the Kitchen

Cooking Up A Hooley In The Kitchen: Christmas Red

By Katie Gagne

Chocolate Chip Cookies are always a favorite. Yet, at the holidays, many people shy away from these cookies and instead make traditional and more inspired pastries. Sometimes, though, a chocolate chip cookie is what you are craving. These cookies are unique and fit just perfectly with the Christmas season

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies     

Makes approximately 3 dozen

Ingredients:
3 cups + 2 tbsp of All Purpose Flour
½ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 teasp Baking Soda
½ teasp Salt
1 cup (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter – room temperature. 1 ½ cups packed Light Brown Sugar
½ cup white Granulated Sugar
2 Large Eggs – room temperature
2 tbsp Buttermilk
4 teasp Vanilla
3 tbsp Red Food Color
2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 cups Dark Chocolate Chips
Whisk flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda in a large bowl and set aside
|With a hand-held or stand mixer, cream butter until light and fluffy
Add in sugars and mix until blended
Add in eggs one at a time
Add vanilla
Add buttermilk and food coloring and mix until combined

Use a good, strong red food color – the baking supplies in Walmart or craft stores are much more intense; you need that for the deep red color.

Add more food coloring until the dough is very bright red. Cookies will brown in the oven and the color becomes faded if you do not use enough.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Stir in the semi-sweet chips.
Dough will be sticky. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.
Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet covered with silicone mat or parchment paper.
Bake in a preheated 350* for 10 min.
They should be slightly puffy when done. Watch the time so the bottoms do not become too dark.

Remove from the oven and press 3-4 dark chocolate chips into each cookie while still on the warm cookie sheet. After 5-10 minutes, transfer to a rack to cool

*Katie Gagne teaches English at Trinity High School in Garfield Heights. She is also the owner of her in-home bakery Sassy’s Sweets and Oh So Much More. You can contact her at (440) 773-4459 or at [email protected], or find her on Facebook at @sassyssweetsandmore.