Christmas Baking Post-a-Thon Day 10: Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies (with coupons!)

Day 10: Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies

3/4 cup butter (not margarine!)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa (or 2 oz. melted unsweetened chocolate)

2 medium eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

This recipe tends to be a little sticky, so you might want to increase the flour just a little bit if you are having trouble rolling out the dough.

Cream butter, sugar, and cocoa (or chocolate) until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix slowly into egg and butter mixture.

Refrigerate two hours.

Roll and cut into desired shapes. Bake on ungreased baking sheets at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Note: rather than wait for your cookie dough to chill, take the freshly-made dough and place a glob between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll it out to the desired thickness then place dough and paper on a cookie sheet and pop it into the refrigerator. Continue rolling your dough between two sheet of the paper until you have used it all. By the time you are finished, the first batch will be completely chilled and ready to cut!. Re-roll leftover dough and repeat the process. An added bonus is that you are not adding any additional flour to your cookies to make them too dry.

(Picture only credit: Createdby-Diane)

COUPONS FOR INGREDIENTS:

Butter: $1/1 Challenge Butter Product printable, $0.75/1 Smart Balance Spreadable Butter & Blended Butter Sticks printable, $0.50/1 Kalona Super Natural Organic Milk, Buttermilk, Whipping Cream, Half & Half, Butter, Cottage Cheese or Sour Cream printable, $0.50/1 Land O Lakes Half Butter Sticks, exp. 12/31/13 (ALL YOU Aug ’13), $1/1 SunButter Product printable

Sugar: $0.40/1 Domino Granulated Sugar, exp. 1/4/14 (RP 11/03/13), $0.75/2 C&H Sugar Product printable, $0.75/2 Domino Sugar Product printable

Cocoa: $1/3 Ghirardelli Baking Chips, Bars or Baking Cocoa, exp. 5/31/14 (Tearpad)

Eggs: $0.75/1 Davidson’s Safest Choice Pasteurized Eggs printable, $0.35/1 Land O Lakes Eggs, exp. 2/17/14 (SS 11/17/13), $0.50/1 Simply Balanced Eggs Target printable, $0.75/1 Eggland’s Best Cage Free Dozen or Organic Dozen Eggs, exp. 2/3/14 (SS 11/03/13 #2 R)

Vanilla Extract: $1/1 Simply Organic Vanilla printable, $0.55/1 Spice Islands Vanilla Extract (Publix Winter Family Savings Printable), $2/1 Crisco Baking Sticks and McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract, exp. 12/27/13 (Publix Happy Holidays Flyer)

Flour: $1/1 Ultragrain All Purpose or White Whole Wheat Flour printable, $1/1 Ultragrain All Purpose or White Whole Wheat Flour printable, $1/1 Hodgson Mill Flour or Cornmeal printable

Salt: $0.40/1 Diamond Crystal Salt (SavingStar Deposit), $0.40/1 Diamond Crystal Salt via Upromise Deposit, $1/1 Losalt printable