C is for Chocolate Cutouts

I do not think there are enough recipes out there that involve cookie cutters. As a baker I have lots of cookie cutters in a variety of designs and I love them all. Recently I was staring at my tin of alphabet/number cutters and I realized that I don't think I have ever used the number ones. Which promptly led to these cookies as I decided my numbers needed some loving.

Number cookies also have the additional bonus of making everyone in my office sing the Sesame Street number song all day long!

In a bowl combine and set aside:

1.5 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp dutch cocoa

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

In a mixer beat until fluffy:

3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter

1.5 cups icing sugar

Add the following to your butter/sugar mix:

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat your wet ingredients until combine, slowly add your flour mixture - mix until everything is just blended. Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for minimum 1 hour.

After the dough has firmed up (I usually like to wait at least 90 minutes) you want to roll it out between two pieces of parchment (or you can use 2 silpats) until the dough is about 1/4" thick. Then put your rolled out dough in the freezer for another 15 minutes. Once your dough is firm you can cut out your shapes (numbers, letters, etc) and place on a silpat on a baking sheet. At this point if you are going to use sprinkles you want to decorate your cookies then put the cut-out, decorated cookies back in the freezer for another 15 minutes (you put the cookies back in the freezer before you put them in the oven to help them keep their shape during the cooking process).

I was not in the mood to make icing last night which is why I only made plain cookies and sprinkled versions. But there is always the option to cover these types of cookies with royal icing (one of my favs)...