Robin’s Egg Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies

Melt in your mouth cut-out cookies that hold shape even after baked. These chocolate cookies are made with dutch process cocoa and have a vanilla frosting tinted blue and speckled to create a robin’s egg cookie look. 

Ingredients for Double Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies 

Cocoa: Dutch process cocoa will give you a richer, chocolate taste. Avoid natural cocoa which is not alkalized and will give you a lighter cookie (in color and taste). 

Flour: all purpose flour, I like a lighter protein flour here if you have a few to choose from as it leads to a more tender, flakier cookie. 

Butter: I prefer unsalted to control the level of salt in the dough but you can use salted. Ensure it’s at room temperature though. 

Powdered sugar: if it’s lumpy, sift it before adding it to the dough. Use a powdered sugar made with tapioca starch, it will taste better. 

How to get the perfect shade of robin’s egg blue

Use a few different gel colors: I use a light blue, a bit of gray and sometimes a dash of purple if I feel like it needs it. If you are going for the traditional aqua colored robin’s egg look, use some green in there.

How to get the speckled robins egg effect on the cookies

All this is a bit of cocoa mixed with water. You’ll dip a brush in the black water then flick it at the cookies. Isn’t it genius? The earliest mention of this technique I found was from 2013, The Cake Blog on Carrie’s Speckled Egg Cake. There’s more photos on how exactly to do this on the page as well so check it out.

How to get frosting on cookies and make it look cute

Clearly I know the answer because mine are perfectly tidy right? Ha. So I tried piping it on and I tried just dropping a dollop in the center and spreading it around with an offset spatula (if you look closely you’ll see the difference). I think the dollop/spatula was easier although it’s definitely less neat unless you have some magnolia cupcake piping skills.

Best tips for perfectly shaped cut-out cookies 

Roll dough evenly and a bit thick: I like to roll my dough to about 1cm thick, overly thin cookies will bake too quickly and not hold shape. Even rolling is important too so that all the cookies are done baking at the same time. 

Chill, twice: the first chill for this dough will be right after it’s made, for at least an hour or two. You can do up to a day but sometimes it dries out. Once the dough is rolled out and cut into shapes we’ll do a second chill, this is to lock in that shape. Cold cookies will go into the oven. 

Underbake: underbaking these cookies is KEY to get that  tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture. At ten minutes it won’t seem like they are done but take them out anyway. They should be a little soft, even once they are cool. 

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies Toppings 

Once the chocolate is on the cookies, and if you’ve tempered it correctly it should start to set quickly so you’ll want any toppings nearby and ready. Sprinkle on halva (pictured), sprinkles, flaked sea salt, nuts, glitter, etc as you like.

Note: for a vanilla version see Marbled Chocolate Sugar Cookies 

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies - Robin's Egg

Melt in your mouth cut-out cookies made with rich dutch process cocoa that hold shape even after baked.

5 from 3 votes

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Ingredients

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookie

• 1 cup butter softened and unsalted (226g)
• 1 cup powdered sugar sifted if lumpy
• ½ cup granulated sugar 100g
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour 250g
• ⅔ cups dutch process cocoa 70g

Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter, softened 113g
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar 100g
• gel food coloring blue
• cocoa & water mix

Method

• In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the powdered sugar, butter, sugar and sea salt. With the paddle attachment, beat the mixture for at least 5 minutes, until it’s well combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for at least 3 minutes to combine. The mixture will look clumpy and wet.
• Place a sieve over the bowl and sift in the flour and cocoa. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and beat on medium low until the dough comes together. Use your hands and gather the dough into a flat disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap and set in the fridge for two hours until the dough is firm but not too stiff to roll out. If you’ve left it for a few hours or overnight, let it soften on the counter until it’s workable
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1cm thick and use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Set the shapes on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Don’t crowd them but also don’t worry about leaving too much space, they won’t spread. Set the tray in the freezer while the oven preheats to 350 F.
• Bake for 10 minutes. Because they are dark you won’t be able to see any browning, we want these slightly underbaked anyway so they’ll be soft inside.
• Make the frosting: Beat the butter, vanilla and salt together. Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Stir in blue food coloring.
• Frost the cookies. Then to get the speckled look, mix a bit of cocoa with water (1 tablespoon of water and a 1/2 tsp cocoa). Dip a paint brush in the mix then tap it over the cookies. It will splatter all over.

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