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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!