Miriam recently had a random day off in the middle of the week and was casting about for something to do … and decided to make cookies! Sometimes it feels like we’ve made every possible type of cookie under the sun, so she was thinking hard about something new to try, and finally settled on these red velvet cookies. Not only were they easy to make, but they also combine two things we love in desserts: white chocolate and fun colors. We’ll warn you that if you make these, you should probably wear something you don’t really care about, because it’s ridiculously easy to get the red color on your clothes. But aside from that, these cookies are fun and tasty, and we’ll show you how to whip them up in no time.
You’ll need:
- Flour
- Cocoa powder
- Baking soda
- A stick of butter
- Sugar
- Brown sugar
- An egg
- Red food coloring
- Vanilla extract
- A lemon
- White chocolate chips
To make your dough, first stir together 1 1/3 cups of flour, 4 teaspoons of cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and a pinch of salt. Then take your stick of butter and soften it for 10 seconds in the microwave, and in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of brown sugar on a medium speed. Once you have an even mixture, add in your egg and combine, then add in 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla, the juice from your lemon, and 2 teaspoons of red food coloring. Finally, on a medium-low speed add in the flour mix and run the mixer just until you have a smooth dough. Measure out 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips and use a rubber spatula to gently stir them in.
Chill your dough in your fridge for an hour, then line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out small scoops of the dough into balls and place them on the parchment paper, spaced about two inches apart – you should get around two dozen individual cookies.
Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes or so, until the cookies are firm at the edges but still a little soft in the middle. Right when you pull them out of the oven, stick 3 or 4 more white chocolate chips into the middle of each cookie, then let them fully cool. And now your cookies will be ready to eat!
Not only can you make these cookies in a snap, but there’s also a likely chance that you have most of the ingredients you need just hanging around your pantry – really the only things you’ll probably have to run out and buy are red food coloring, white chocolate chips, and maybe the lemon. And it’s pretty amazing that in just a short time you can combine all these ingredients together to get a vibrant and tasty treat. We enjoyed the flavor of red velvet transferred here to a cookie and combined with white chocolate morsels, and we also thought these just looked really, really cool. It was a great and easy project to take on for a unplanned afternoon, and we think you too will have a fun and delicious time with these cookies.