Description
These penguin cookies are buttery, melt in your mouth, shortbread cookies dipped in a luscious layer of creamy chocolate and will dazzle at your next holiday celebration!
Ingredients
Scale
Shortbread Cookies
- 218g (1¾ cups) all purpose flour, spooned and levelled
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 170g (¾ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 100g (½ cup) granulated or caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure almond or vanilla extract
To decorate cookies
- 97g (⅓ cup) couverture chocolate, melted
- 20 candy eyes
- 2 drops orange gel coloring
- 56g (¼ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 120g (½ cup) powdered sugar, sifted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar until the mixture is fluffy and pale yellow. Add the almond extract. Then, add the flour a cup at a time, until you have a crumbly dough that’s starting to come together.
- Turn the dough onto a pastry or cutting board. Press the dough together with clean hands until you have a smooth ball of dough. Cut the dough into two, and flatten each portion into a 1/2” disc. Wrap with plastic wrap, and freeze for about 15 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each disc of dough until it’s 1/4” thick. Cut out an even number of 3” circles with a cookie cutter.
- Place the cookies 1” apart on the prepared sheets, and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the bottoms and edges are lightly browned. Let cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, and then move the cookies to a wire rack to completely cool.
- Place the chopped dark chocolate into a heat-proof bowl. Heat the chocolate in the microwave in 15-30 seconds intervals until completely melted. Allow to stand for 2 – 3 minutes, then stir well until you get a smooth chocolate. Allow to cool slightly until it reaches the consistency at which it can be piped.
- Dip the cookies into the melted dark chocolate to get the pattern you can see in the pictures above. To do this, dip half of the cookie into chocolate, then rotate it and dip in the other half, leaving a small triangle of the cookie uncovered.
- Pipe small dots of chocolate onto the triangles not covered by the chocolate to make “buttons”.
- In a small bowl, cream together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add a drop of orange gel coloring. Set aside.
- Place goggle eyes and pipe beaks with a triangle piping tip using orange buttercream onto the cookies (see pictures in post).
- Allow the chocolate to firm up. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Penguin cookies, Christmas cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: penguin cookies, penguin christmas cookies, penguin shortbread cookies