Soft and chewy Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies.
Ingredients
- 115 grams (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 90 grams (1/2 cup) brown sugar
- 50 grams (1/4 cup) caster sugar or granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 175 grams (1 and 1/4 cup) plain flour or all purpose flour
- 20 grams (1/4 cup) cocoa powder, sifted
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 75 grams (1/2 cup) dark chocolate chips
- 3/4 teaspoon good quality oil-based red food gel
Sugar coating
- 100 grams (1/2 cup) white sugar or granulated sugar
- 65 grams (1/2 cup) pure icing sugar or powdered sugar, sifted
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla and egg and beat again until combined.
- Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips. Add red food colour. Beat briefly until soft cookie dough forms.
- Cover cookie dough with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) standard / 160 C (320 F) fan-forced. Line two baking trays with baking or parchment paper.
- Set out your sugars in two bowls ready for rolling. Then scoop cookie dough, roughly 1.5 tablespoons per cookie, and roll into balls using your hands.
- Roll each cookie dough ball first in the white sugar and then in the icing sugar before placing on your prepared trays. Repeat until all cookie dough balls have been coated in the two sugars.
- Do a quick check and if any of your cookie dough balls aren’t looking completely covered in icing sugar, roll them a second time in icing sugar only.
- Bake cookies for approximately 11-12 minutes or until they’ve spread out and developed a crinkley top. Leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Cocoa powder: Use a 100% natural unsweetened cocoa powder.
Red food colour: Use a good quality oil-based food gel, rather than a standard water-down food colouring for this recipe. Food colouring will not only add too much liquid to the dough, but you’ll struggle to get that striking colour. I used Colour Mill red food gel in this recipe. For a more vibrant red, I recommend using 1/2 teaspoon of red food gel and 1/2 teaspoon of pink red gel.
Chocolate chips: You can use any chocolate chips you like in this recipe. Personally, I love them with dark chocolate chips as it enhances the subtle chocolate flavour in these cookies.
Sugar coating: I highly recommend rolling these cookies in both sugars before baking to achieve that snow-white crinkle top. Unfortunately, caster sugar doesn’t work so well as it is very fine, so I recommend rolling them in white sugar (or granulated sugar) first. Then roll them in the icing sugar (or powdered sugar). For best results, use a pure icing sugar, rather than icing sugar mixture which has cornflour in it.
Make ahead: You can make and chill the cookie dough in advance – but you must roll the cookie dough in the sugars right before baking. You can’t do that step ahead of time. You can also freeze the cookie dough. But again, you will need to roll the cookie dough in the sugar coating when you are ready to bake them. You will also need to slightly defrost the cookie dough first – either leave it in the fridge overnight or thaw it at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Storage: Store cookies in an airtight container either at room temperature or in the fridge.
