Want to know what happens when you have 6 snow days in a month and a half?  You lose all track of time.  Literally.  This past weekend was supposed to be a long weekend from school for Presidents’ Day.  We were going to have Friday through Tuesday off.  However, we had 4 snow days in January/early February, so the school decided to take away 2 of those days (Friday and Tuesday) because we didn’t have enough days built into the end of the year.  So in honor of having school on Valentine’s Day after all, I decided to make heart-shaped cookies for my students.

Then Mother Nature decided that we did indeed deserve a break.  And we had snow days on Thursday and Friday.  So we ended up with the long weekend anyways.  And there’s more snow in the forecast for tomorrow, meaning it could be an even longer weekend.  And also meaning I probably will be in school straight through next September.

But with all of this losing vacation days and getting snow days, you can see how I could lose track of when in the week it was.  And thus the Monday post.  I apologize to all of you who were anxiously awaiting my post yesterday, only to go to bed sad and start their week without visions of baked goods dancing in their heads as they moved towards Monday morning.  Hopefully you’ll forgive me.

Anyways, these chocolate cookies have been sitting in tupperware containers in my kitchen since Wednesday.  They are crunchy by nature, so even if we have a snow day AGAIN tomorrow, I’m confident my kids will still appreciate them when they do finally get to school.  I only wish I had thought ahead and made four leaf clovers instead.

And, if you didn’t know by now that I was a little crazy, here’s some more proof:

I decided to give my eggs a little stability and decrease the chance of them rolling off the counter by creating butter nests.  Yet another use of butter!

So first step: cream together the sugar and butter.  There is no requirement on using a stand mixer for this, I just like mine.

Then, add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, continuously beating until well combined.

Next, add the cocoa powder and flour.  At this point, I switched to a dough hook, mostly because I didn’t totally know how to make a full batch of cookie dough in a stand mixer (I usually make frosting, which requires the paddle attachment), but a dough hook sounded promising.

Make sure to scrape down the sides while you’re doing this and the bottom as well – I had some sneaky flour hiding under the rest of the dough.

I made these as a cookie press cookie.  There is a heart template, so I couldn’t really resist.  It looked like this when it was inside the tube:

Amazing that can turn into a heart, right?  So you should fill your cookie press, if you have it, with the dough.  I’ve found that if you don’t fill it all the way up, the press works a little better.

Put the press on an ungreased cookie sheet and press away!  You can fit lots of cookies on a single sheet.

Bake the cookies at 375°F for 8 minutes.  Make sure to rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time.  Allow to cool for 2 minutes on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

This recipe makes a lot of cookies.  I’m talking 12 dozen.  That’s a dozen dozens of cookies.  Which was good for me because I have 125 students, but if you don’t have that many people to help you eat the cookies, you may want to reduce the ingredients.  Before I knew about the snow days, they looked great all plated and ready to bring to school:

But, alas, it was not meant to be, and they were banished to tupperware for the weekend.  If there weren’t 125 of them, I think that adding some frosting and sprinkles would definitely benefit the cookie.  They are a dark chocolate, not very sweet, which I liked, but if your audience is of the younger variety, a little more sweet would not be a bad thing.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups salted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. While continuously beating, add vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time.
3. Add flour and cocoa powder, mixing until well combined.
4. Fill cookie press and press onto ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 375°F for 8 minutes, rotating pan halfway through bake time.  Allow to cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Frost and decorate as desired.