All Purpose Cocoa Cookie Dough for Wafers, Bars, Drop Cookies

I am frequently wary of all purpose cookie doughs.  They are usually butter cookie dough based, and maybe I should not say wary so much as they do not result in the kinds of cookies that I love, so I pass them by.  But then a few weeks ago I was browsing Fine Cooking: Chocolate, and I noticed that they had a chocolate all purpose cookie dough.  And it made cookies both crispy and chewy.  Now that I found intriguing.

Fine Cooking provided 3 possible cookies; I made 1 of the suggestions close to exactly, I adapted another suggestion, and I created my own third cookie.  2 of the cookies I loved, one I thought was good not great (I loved the slice and bake cookies and the bar cookies; the drop cookies were good but not amazing).  I imagined loads more possibilities.

The dough is made in a food processor, which means it is not just a useful dough but also a very easy one.  It does not require eggs either, which makes it a fun dough for Sammy everyone to steal bites of.  I found it more useful to double the recipe, because if I am going to bother making 2-3 different kinds of cookies, I wanted more than just a few of each kind (including extra dough to freeze).  The recipe as written below is doubled, and it will fit in a 16 cup food processor, but it may need some additional help from a spatula.

The pictures are of 2 of the resulting cookies, one a slice and bake cookie and one a drop cookie.  I used 1/3 of the drop cookie portion to bake drop cookies, but then I used the remaining 2/3 dough to make brownies, or a bar cookie version, which I greatly preferred for its superior chewiness (but alas did not get a chance to photograph).  I say experiment and try it in all sorts of drop, bar, and slice-and-bake cookies.

Print

All Purpose Cocoa Cookie Dough for Wafers, Bars, Drop Cookies

Closely adapted from Fine Cooking

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Cookies

Keyword: cocoa, cookie dough

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 20 oz (4 1/2 cups) AP flour
• 6 3/4 oz (2 1/4) cups natural cocoa powder
• 3 1/3 cups sugar
• 3/4 t baking soda
• 1 t fine sea salt
• 2 1/2 cups (21 oz, 5 sticks plus 2 T) unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 9 T whole milk
• 1 T vanilla

Possible Mix-ins for slice and bake:

• Nothing--will yield a crisp wafer cookie
• finely chopped or pulverized bittersweet chocolate I tried, was delicious
• instant espresso or finely ground coffee beans I tried the latter, was delicious
• mini chocolate chips
• cacao nibs
• peppermint oil or extract
• spices such as cinnamon or chile pepper
• Try sprinkling the unbaked sliced cookies with salt or coarse sugar

Possible Mix-ins for drop and bar cookies:

• chocolate chips or chunks--white milk or semi/bittersweet (I tried, was excellent)
• flavored chips such as mint or peanut butter
• spices
• M&Ms or other chopped candy
• candied ginger
• cacao nibs I tried, was excellent
• chopped nuts
• dried fruit
• coarse sea salt mixed in or sprinkled on top (I tried and loved)

Instructions

1. Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda and salt into a large (16+ cups) food processor. Process for a few seconds to mix. Add the butter in chunks. Run the processor for another 5-10 seconds. Use a spatula to scrape the bottom and sides if needed. With the processor running, add the milk and vanilla until the dough clumps around the processor blades.
2. Scrape the dough onto a clean work surface and knead briefly to finish mixing. Knead or mix in any of the options listed above.
3. If you are making slice-and-bakes, roll the dough into logs and chill for at least 3 hours.
4. When you are ready to bake, either right away or after chilling the logs, Preheat the oven at 350 F.
5. Bake at 350 F until done--the thinner the cookie, the longer they will take to bake. I started checking at 8 minutes for individual cookies and 20 minutes for bars. I took them out when the tops got a little dull but were still soft. Play around and experiment!