Chocolate Tipped Butter Cookies

December. The last month of school before winter break and the classroom is in its December version: slightly more fragile, slightly more vivid, exactly as I predicted last year and prepared for this year. I have been building in extra transition time this week. Isabel has been asking "Is it Christmas?" every morning since Monday — her tablet has "Christmas" as one of the words and she uses it now as a general category for "anticipated change." I say: yes, Christmas is coming. She says: "I have a crown." Yes, Isabel. You absolutely have a crown.

Book chapter progress: I finished the Jess chapter this week. Took it out and wrote it in one sitting on a Thursday evening when Ryan was on shift — four thousand words, and then I closed the laptop and sat in the kitchen for about twenty minutes not doing anything. It was hard to write and it is true, which is what Jess would want, and it is also about the butter pasta and what the butter pasta meant in 2017. I sent it to Kristin. She called the next morning and said "This is the best one." She said she cried. She said "Jess sounds like someone I would have liked." I said she was. Kristin said "Then she was someone worth writing about." Yes. She is.

Made gingerbread cookies this week — the cutout kind, with a proper gingerbread dough using real ginger and molasses and black pepper and cloves. Cut them into the shapes I have had since childhood: stars and trees and the gingerbread man that Patty always over-iced because she said plain icing was depressing. I iced them with Ryan on Saturday — he came over for cookie decorating, which was my suggestion and which he accepted without making it into a thing, because some people are secure enough in themselves to ice gingerbread cookies on a December Saturday and find it genuinely enjoyable.

He is not a precise icer. He iced a Christmas tree that looked like a tornado hit it and he was proud of it. He held it up. He said "This is a very good tree." It was objectively not a very good tree. But he made it and he was pleased and I ate one of his tornado trees and said it tasted exactly right. Because it did. The icing flavor does not change when the tree is lopsided. Some things stay right no matter how they look from the outside.

The gingerbread was ours — mine and Ryan’s and Patty’s before that — but if you want something to bring to a cookie exchange, or to tuck into a tin for a neighbor, or just to make on a quiet afternoon when you need your hands to be doing something good, these Chocolate Tipped Butter Cookies are what I reach for next. They’re simple enough that nobody has to be a precise icer, sturdy enough to hold their shape, and the chocolate on the end is the kind of detail that feels a little bit fancy without requiring you to be anything other than yourself in the kitchen.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 1 hr (includes chilling) | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon vegetable shortening or coconut oil
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans or sprinkles, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and powdered sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add vanilla and almond extracts and mix to combine.
Mix in the dry ingredients. Add flour and salt to the butter mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough just comes together and no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Shape the dough. Divide dough in half. Roll each half into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, until firm enough to slice cleanly.
Preheat and slice. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice chilled dough logs into rounds about 1/4 inch thick and place 1 inch apart on prepared pans.
Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just barely golden. The centers should look set but not browned. Let cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Melt the chocolate. Combine chocolate chips and shortening in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring between each, until fully melted and smooth.
Dip and set. Dip the tip of each cooled cookie into the melted chocolate, letting the excess drip back into the bowl. If using, immediately press chopped pecans or sprinkles onto the chocolate before it sets. Place on parchment to dry completely, about 20–30 minutes at room temperature or 10 minutes in the refrigerator.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Tipped Butter Cookies — The Ones You Decorate When You Just Want to Be Present