I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day, but I do love the food. I love seeing all the breakfast in bed ideas and rich desserts that people come up with. Today though, I'm digging these from scratch red velvet cookies.
These cookies do have dyes in them. Natural food dyes. We rotate between brands but from experience I've found that it takes a LOT of natural food dye to get a good red color. Beet powder has been a lifesaver. It gives off that rich color that I want without having to use a half a bottle of expensive natural food dye and having to add more flour to offset the addition. These red velvet cookies have just a hint of red.
Later in the week you'll get a delicious red velvet recipe that does include the actual vegetable. I had all the kids fooled--FOOLED! (Score one for Mom) but today let's start off the week with some delicious cookies.
Ingredients
- 1 and ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour or white whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup butter, softened (can use ¼ cup softened butter, ¼ cup nonfat plain greek yogurt)
- ¾ cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1-2 tbsp milk (if using unbleached all purpose flour you will want to keep it at 1 tbsp, if you are using whole wheat flour you may want to use 2 tbsp depending on how dry the dough is).
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-4 tsp beet powder
- 1 ½ cups white chocolate chips or ¾ cup white chocolate chips/Valentines milk chocolate M&M's.
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a mixer bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy on medium to high speed (2-3 minutes).
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and add in the egg, vanilla and milk, mixing until combined. Stop and scrape the bowl if needed. Add in the food coloring and mix until incorporated.
- Slowly add in the flour mixture, continuing to mix until the dough is soft. Add more food coloring if needed.
- Stop mixer, fold in the chocolate chips.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap or tin foil and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour to 1 day. Remove from refrigerator allow dough to sit at room temperature while oven preheats if it has sat for several hours in the fridge or up to 45 minutes at room temperature if it has been chilled for a day. preheat oven to 350 degrees for conventional oven or 325 degrees for convection oven. Lightly grease baking sheets.
- Roll dough into tablespoon sized balls and place on baking sheet, leaving several inches of space between cookies.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes in a conventional oven or at 325 degrees for 7-9 minutes if baking in a convection oven. Remove from oven and allow to cool for several minutes on the baking sheet before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
Notes
Cookie Storage: Store in an airtight container for up to one week, in an airtight freezer container or storage bag in the freezer for up to one month. Cookie dough can be made up and then frozen. Store dough in an airtight container or bag for one month. To cook, thaw dough then prepare as directed above.
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