Red Velvet Cut Out Cookies

These beautiful red cookies are perfectly soft in the middle with a light crust on the edge. No chilling necessary, no spread recipe is ready in a flash! And if you love the taste of chocolate, this scratch recipe is superbly rich in cocoa. This isn't your cake mix cookie and the taste will stand out more beautifully than any other recipe I have tried. I had been saving this one for Valentine's Day, but they are perfect all year round and will make some amazing Christmas swap cookies!

Look at how beautiful this rolled out without any chilling! Just make sure you let your dough "rest" after mixing before using that rolling pin! I got these cute cookie heart cut outs here.

Fresh out of the oven and those edges still look perfect! Cook them just until the shine in most of the cookie is gone.

This Red Velvet recipe and the Vanilla Bean Royal Icing recipe I used for these was adapted by Sweet Sugarbelle. If you haven't found her on Instagram or checked out her blog, you MUST. She has terrific videos and tutorials that inspire me daily. She uses a very similar royal icing like mine but talks about adding vanilla bean paste, check out this link to her page. I tried it today because I love those speckles against the creamy white. I did NOT add any white coloring this time because I wanted it to be a more natural color.

You can find Lorann's vanilla bean paste here and the red velvet emulsion I used in these cookies here.

This recipe is well worth the few extra steps and ingredients it takes for that full, rich cocoa taste.

Oh and you can find my royal icing recipe here, and I used just two modifications... I used 2 teaspoons of the Princess Cake and Cookie emulsion (found here) instead of almond extract and I added 1 tablespoon of Vanilla Bean Paste to each cup of icing, as recommended.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter

• 2 cups confectioners sugar

• 1 egg

• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste {or extract}

• 1 tbsp Lorann red velvet emulsion

• 2-3 tbsp milk

• 1/2 cup Hershey’s Cocoa powder

• 1/4 cup buttermilk powder (this stuff is mind blowing!)

• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Cream together butter and confectioners sugar.

2. Add the egg, vanilla, red velvet emulsion, and milk and mix well.

3. Start with 2 tablespoons of milk, then add the rest if the dough is a little dry after adding the flour mixture.

4. Sift together the cocoa, buttermilk powder, flour, baking powder and salt and add to the wet ingredients.

5. As the dough begins to form add a splash of apple cider vinegar.

6. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

7. After mixing, let it rest for five to ten minutes, then roll out on parchment paper to 1/4 inch thickness dusting lightly with flour (see my tips below) if needed.

8. Cut into desired shapes and bake at 400 degrees for 6-7 minutes. Don't over bake them and watch those edges!

Tips:

• I chilled my cookies but you really don't have too. I just like to make sure they aren't too soft before going into the oven.

• You can substitute red coloring gel for the Red Velvet emulsion, but after trying both I like the emulsion better. It mixes much better and doesn't have that bitter red coloring taste.

• I used a small mixture of flour and cocoa powder on a metal spatula to pick up the cookies off my silicone rolling mat. It doesn't leave that white powder look on the red cookie.

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