Chocolate Butter Cut Out Cookies

Our answer

Nigella's Butter Cut-Out Cookies (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) are made from a vanilla-flavoured dough that can be rolled out and cut into shapes. If you wanted to make a chocolate version of the cookies then you would need to substitute some of the flour with cocoa (unsweetened cocoa). However as cocoa absorbs a lot of liquid the structure will not be exactly the same and the cookies may be slightly dryer and crisper.

We would suggest substituting 50g of the flour with 50g (1/2 cup) of good quality cocoa powder. As cocoa powder tends to be lumpy it is easiest to sift it into the flour mixture before adding the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar. Vanilla helps to enhance the flavour of chocolate so we suggest that you leave the vanilla extract in the recipe. It is slightly more difficult to see when the cookies are baked but they should be slightly darker at the edges and look dry and set on top. The baking time may be slightly shorter so start checking the cookies after 8 minutes of baking. We would mention that we have not tested this version so we cannot guarantee the results. If you like intense chocolate cookies then we would also suggest trying the Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies or the gluten-free Triple Chocolate Buckwheat Cookies.