One of my friends twisted my arm and convinced me to try making those cookie shot glasses that are in the news right now (check it out!). In the interests of authenticity, I wanted to use a chocolate chip cookie dough just like Dominique Ansel did. I’d never seen a roll-out chocolate chip cookie recipe before though. I checked all my books – no luck. So then I checked google. And look at that, SweetSugarBelle posted a recipe in 2011.
I’m a big fan of SweetSugarBelle’s cookies – they’re all so gorgeous. But this is the first time I’ve tried a recipe from her site. She says this one is originally from a book called Sugarbakers Cookie Cutter Cookbook and that every recipe she’s tried from it so far has been a winner. Guess what I just added to my shopping cart (ahem).
The dough is great to work with. It’s a little dry and crumbly, but overall rolls out easily. I definitely recommend using mini chocolate chips – I can’t imagine trying to use a cookie cutter with full-sized chips in the dough. The recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups of chips, but after adding just 1 cup, I decided that was enough. You can tell from the photos that there’s no shortage of chocolate chips here! Keeping in mind my main goal in trying this recipe was to duplicate those cookie shot glasses, I was worried that more would make the cookie too delicate. For regular roll-out cookies, though, the full 1-1/2 cups should be great!
In the end, I only made a few of the shot glasses, and baked up the rest as regular cookies.
As you can see, this dough holds its shape really well as it bakes. It puffs up a tiny bit, but doesn’t really spread at all. Perfect cookie cutter dough!
Once baked, these cookies are a bit crunchy and crumbly, but still soft – almost like a shortbread studded with tiny chocolate chips. If you’re looking for a chewy gooey chocolate chip cookie? This isn’t the one for you. But this is a perfect cookie to dunk in milk, or fill with milk!
roll-out chocolate chip cookies
Adapted from SweetSugarBelle, recipe originally from Sugarbakers Cookie Cutter Cookbook by Diana Collingwood Butts and Carol V. Wright. The number of cookies this recipe will yield will depend on how thick you choose to roll the dough and the size of the cutter you use.
ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (I thought this was too much for the shot glasses and just used 1 cup – still plenty of chocolate chips in there!)
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg yolk and vanilla and beat to incorporate.
Turn the mixer down to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until just barely combined. Remove from the mixer and knead in the mini chocolate chips by hand to ensure they're distributed evenly.
Divide the dough into 2 portions. Roll each portion out onto a piece of parchment or wax paper to just shy of 1/4" thickness (I used a 3/16" guide). Stack the 2 pieces (paper included) onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (I let them chill overnight).
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Remove one of the dough pieces from the fridge at a time and cut shapes with whatever cookie cutter you've chosen. Transfer the cut pieces to your prepared baking sheets. Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until finished.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, until they’re lightly golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool on a wire rack for a few minutes before removing the cookies from the pan and allowing them to cool completely.
they look perfect!
Thanks Dina! These cookies hold their shape really well. 🙂
These look absolutely delicious! I’ve added this recipe to my healthy homemade treats board for later this afternoon. I’ll let you know how they turn out. Your photography is gorgeous by the way. Keep up the great work!
omg, thank you so much Lesley! I’m my own worst critic, so comments like this absolutely mean the world to me. I hope you enjoy the cookies. 🙂
Im sorry….i was checking out these comments just in case anyone did something different with the recipe and then i saw you were adding this to “healthy” homemade treats…..what is healthy about these cookies? I only see unsalted butter and the egg yolk……but the all purpose flour and all the sugar is quite just the opposite. If perhaps the flour was substituted with spelt flour and the brown sugar was replaced with honey or succant and possibly the white sugar was replaced with maybe some maple syrup…then we would be going in the general direction but cookies are mostly just yummy. I mean no disrespect. I just find it interesting what we deem as healthy for one another…..take care
How many cookies does this make please
Hi Sophie! Sorry, but I don’t have an exact number for how many cookies it makes. It will all depend on how thick you roll the dough and what size your cookie cutters are. I can tell you I got a couple of cookie jars full though.
can we bake these a week in advance ?
Absolutely. They’ll still be fine. Although if you want, you could make the dough in advance, freeze it, and then bake it just before you need it.
Do you think I can do this with any recipe? I just want to make perfect round cookies
Hi Dana. If you want to use cookie cutters, you need to use a recipe that specifically says it’s for that. Otherwise the dough will spread and distort as you bake it. If you don’t want to use cookie cutters, you could try baking your cookies in ring molds or a muffin tin. Good luck! Let us know what you try 🙂
I noticed that this recipe doesn’t call for baking soda. Doe this help with the spreading that happens with most chocolate chip recipes?
Hi LaTisha
Yes, that’s it exactly. 🙂
Can you add icing to these cookies? My daughter wants to make “vanilla chocolate chip cookies with peppermint icing” for Santa 🙂
Hi Nicole, sorry for the late reply. I say why not?? They’re cookies for santa – you can do whatever you want! And honestly, I’m sure they’ll taste great. I’m a big fan of chocolate + peppermint. Have fun!!
What happens if you only have reg sized chocolate chips on hand? Is it better to use the minis?
Hi Candice – I’d say it’s definitely better to have the minis. If you use regular chips, you wouldn’t be able to roll the dough as thin and the cookies would probably break up completely. Do you have a food processor? You could maybe try cutting them into smaller bits?
Just made these with my new corgi shaped cookie cutter and they turned out great! Thank you for posting this recipe!
I’m so glad to hear that Danika! And I’m dying to see those corgi cookies 🙂
I usually make cutout cookies with cream cheese, but this is different!
It was kinda hard to transfer the dough to the baking pan tho, it broke apart a few times. But when I took it out the oven it was really crunchy and taste buttery! I liked it, thanks for the recipe!
PS; still have some leftover dough in the freezer, might bake them tmr! 😀
Hi Anna May! I don’t think I’ve ever made cut out cookies with cream cheese, but they sound delicious 🙂 I’m glad these turned out for you!
these sound wonderful my daughter gettin married in october and i was gonna make mason jar cut out sugar cookies but i may just give these a trail run to see how they come out
Hi Michele! Sorry for the late reply to you too. I hope you let me know how they turn out if you do give them a try. Congratulations to your daughter! And good luck! 🙂
Very delicious!! Only thing is the dough was extremely crumbly. I did about 9 heart cutouts and just made a cookie cake with the rest bc the dough kept falling apart as I rolled. I didn’t refrigerate It either bc it would have been even more crumbly and hard to roll out. It was the best cookie cake I’ve ever had though…soft, buttery, not too sweet. Thank you.
Hi E’lise! I’m sorry for the late reply. There are so many things that could make a dough crumbly like that. It’s possible the butter wasn’t quite soft enough, or your eggs were a little smaller than mine, or we measured our flour differently. You can always add a teaspoon or two of water to crumbly dough to make it more workable. Careful not to add to much though. 🙂
I’m glad it tasted good anyway. It really reminded me of a shortbread flavour. Like you said, not too sweet, but deliciously buttery.
So it says transfer to the prepared baking sheet but you never say how to prepare the sheets. But just made these and dough is in the fridge! Really excited to see how they turn out.
Hi Isabelle! Sorry about that – just prepare your baking sheets however you usually do for cookies, whether you like to use silpat sheets, parchment paper, or grease them manually. I think I baked these on plain baking sheets with nothing added. I really hope they turn out for you! 🙂
How did you make the shot glass cookies?
Hi Heather! The instructions are here – http://wannacomewith.com/2014/03/cookie-shot-glasses
Have fun! 🙂
I’m making this now. The ingredients are very crumbly. I do not have a mixer and did it all by hand. I’m wondering if maybe I should add another egg. Currently, it’s in the fridge. But I’m not sure how dough like it will become.
Hi Brittney! Doing it all by hand shouldn’t be a problem, but that may be why it’s more crumbly – because you probably can’t get the butter as fluffy without a real workout. The good news, though, is that leaving it in the fridge to rest for a couple hours will help the flour hydrate, so that should help. I definitely wouldn’t add an egg though, as that might make them puff up when they bake and they won’t hold their shapes.
If it’s still crumbly after refrigerating, you could try adding a tiny bit of water – seriously, no more than like 1/2 teaspoon at a time to get it to hold together a bit better.
Please let me know how it works out! 🙂
I am making these cookies for a christmas party because a friend told me the recipe. They sound and look amazing, but I was wondering what sort of icing you’d recommend for these. Maybe royal icing?
Also, if I am cutting out the cookies, and I have leftovers on the outer edges of the cutters, do I roll it back out, chill it, then cut it? Oh! I did a practice run and they are amazing! Keep up the good work
Hi Julia! I’m so glad you’re enjoying them 🙂 Honestly, I wouldn’t use any icing with these. If you’ve tried some, you know they’re nice as-is. But if you did want to ice them, a royal icing should work just fine. Or you could make little sandwich cookies with a fruity buttercream or a chocolate ganache filling!
And while some people say you shouldn’t re-roll the scraps, I always do and they turn out just fine. I don’t even bother re-chilling it. I think once you’ve chilled this dough once, the flour is all nicely hydrated and it’s good to go. It doesn’t seem to spread out either way.
Let me know what you decide to do with the icing/filling! 🙂
Oh. My. GAWD!!!!! Finally my prayers have been answered!!! I didn’t really ever make christmas cookies because I don’t like plain sugar cookies and I couldn’t find a chocolate chip cookie cutter recipe…UNTIL NOW!!! I left my dough a little thicker than I probably should have and honestly, I think that worked out better. I didn’t have any break apart and I just cooked them longer than what you said. The dough was SO YUMMY!!!! (i probably could have made more if I hadn’t been munching on dough while making it lol). Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
That’s so awesome Tori!! I’m so glad I could help you find this recipe 😀
I just found this today. I’d love to make these today but I only have salted butter!? I suppose that won’t work, will it?
Hi Jen! I hope I’m not replying too late, but you can definitely use the salted butter. Just make sure to skip the 1/2 tsp of salt in the recipe. Have fun!
Awesome recpie but do we have to keep the cookie dough in the fridge for 30 minutes?
Hi Amy. You could probably get away with skipping this step, but it will affect the outcome of the cookies (they won’t be inedible, but the texture will be different). Letting them rest for a while will both help the flour fully hydrate, as well as help prevent the cookies from spreading as they bake (so they don’t lose their shapes).
I made dog bone shaped cookies for my grandsons Paw Patrol 1st birthday party. The cookies turned out Darlene but they were very dry. They tasted nothing like a chocolate chip cookie but more like a chocolate chip shortbread cookie. The dough is very crumbly and only rolled out better after I kneaed it with my hands and made it a little softer. I am going to outline them with icing to add color. I’m sure the kids will love them but they were just not for me
Hi Andrea – I’m sorry to hear these cookies weren’t to your taste. I did mention in the post that they reminded me of shortbread cookies though. Unfortunately, a traditional chewy chocolate chip cookie won’t work with cookie cutters because they’d spread too much. I know other people have added frosting to these in the past, so I’m sure that will work for you too. Good luck!
I’m about to make these in the morning. Mothers day present. I am 3D printing the cutters in shapes of I L O V E Y O U M O M and will be making this recipe in the morning, but getting stuff like grinding the regular sizes chocolate chips out of the way now. I’ll tell you how they turn out!
Hi Nathan – sorry for the late reply. I hope these turned out for you. I’m so jealous of your 3D printer! I’d have SO many cookie cutters if I had one of those. I’d love to see a photo if you happened to take one. 🙂
I made these today and used a set of Star Wars cookie cutters that were a wedding gift! They turned out phenomenally, and each little intricate detail from the cutter carried over to the cookie! I was very impressed! Thank you for the recipe!!
Hi Renee – I’m glad to hear this recipe worked for you too. I’m always happy to find a really good cookie cutter recipe. And I’m a little jealous of your cutters. I’m tempted to look them up, but how many cookie cutters does one person need? How many is too many, really?
can you freeze these at all
Hi Toni – sorry for the late reply! Yes, they should freeze as well as most cookies. Of course you could also cut out the shapes and then freeze those so they’re ready to bake fresh. 🙂
Hi. These look exactly right for my kids for a Christmas treat. Thanks for posting the recipe. I see from the photos that you made some with chocolate flavour dough. Did you swap out some of the flour for cocoa?
Hi Carla
I hope your kids love these! Those chocolate ones are actually a totally different recipe. You can find them here – http://wannacomewith.com/2014/04/chocolate-cookie-cutouts/ (and they’re delicious). Good luck!!
Can the dough be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator for a day or two befor baking?
Hi Cindy, yes, absolutely! Note that the dough will need some time to soften up a bit before you attempt to roll it out. OR you could roll it out before you put it in the fridge (that’s my preference). 🙂
These cookies are perfection. I cut them out in hearts for Valentines Day. I didn’t see recipe called for mini chips, but regular worked fine. I have good cutters so just needed to press little harder. These are will go fast with my grandkids. Thank you. Love this recipe.
Hi Phyllis, I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies as much as I did. Other people have told me they had trouble making them with regular chips, so I’m happy to hear you didn’t have problems. ?