Chocolate Drops

When I was growing up in Virginia, there was a bakery called Brenner's Bakery. They made these chocolate drop cookies that we called POOPOO cookies because of how the chocolate frosting looked on top. I have wanted to try my hand at making these for a while. So, I finally decided to try it for St. Patty's Day. Don't worry, you can make these anytime as the only thing that makes them 'St. Patty's Day' cookies is the sprinkles.

Ingredients

Now, I only took pictures of making the cookies. I will include the recipe for the Dark Chocolate Buttercream I used at the bottom as well.

Start with softened butter. Add sugar and beat with electric mixer until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Your mixture should resemble the following picture.

Add your egg and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add your dry mixture to your wet mixture and continue to mix on medium speed.  Once combined, add your vanilla and mix well. Your dough should look like the picture below.

Take a small amount of dough, around a tablespoon and roll into a ball. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing about 2 inches apart.

Slightly flatten dough with the palm of your hand just before baking.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10-13 minutes or until just browned on the edges.

All done

Allow cookies to cool completely. My mom (who's house I made these at), has the best cookie cooling rack. I seriously need to purchase one!  Once cookies are cooled completely, you can frost and decorate as you like. 

I went with a Dark Chocolate Buttercream, though staying true to Brenners would have called for a basic Chocolate buttercream.  I just favor the dark chocolate more :)  Hope you enjoy this recipe and here is the cookie and frosting recipe:

Recipe:

 Butter Cookie

1 1/2 sticks softened butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream butter and sugar using mixer until fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  

Add egg and mix until combined.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

Slowly add dry ingredient mixture to your wet mixture.

Mix until combined on medium speed.

Add vanilla and stir to combine.

Take about a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. 

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet

Repeat with remaining dough, placing dough 2 inches apart.

Flatten slightly with palm.

Bake for 10-13 minutes until just browned.

Cool cookies completely.

Dark Chocolate Buttercream

1 1/2 sticks softened butter

1/2 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder

2 1/2 cups Confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Add butter and cocoa to bowl of stand mixer (or bowl if using hand mixer)

Cream together until well combined.

Add sugar to butter mixture slowly. 

Add vanilla extract and mix well.

Add milk, at a tablespoon at a time, until you reach the consistency you want. If too stiff, add more milk.

*Pipe onto cookies using decorating bag or Ziplock with corner snipped off.

As I said in my previous post, I am trying to catch up on recipes and obviously I made these a while ago. Hopefully I will have the rest of my back recipes up on here soon!

Extreme Cookie Closeup