Chocolate-Raspberry Cookie Pops

When I saw the cookie of the month for February I felt a mix of emotions: nervous, excited, delighted, and scared. These cookies looked really impressive and my first thought was “there is no way I can make these!” These were made by a professional baker and I just bake for fun!

BUT I made the decision to follow the magazine and make a cookie a month for the year of 2019. Also, what kind of person would I be to back down from a challenge because it looks hard? So, I committed!

After I decided to push forward I needed to decide how I was going to tackle making royal icing and my pipe work, both of which I have never used or attempted before. First I needed to find meringue powder. It’s one of those baking ingredients you can’t find in a normal grocery store. I found the meringue powder in the baking aisle at Michael’s, but I am sure you could find it at Joann’s as well. Another item i had difficulty finding was cherry extract. So I substituted raspberry extract instead….basically any extract (strawberry, raspberry, cherry) that would go well with chocolate.

Another snap-fu I came across was the recipe said I needed to use a 3in circle cutter to make the cookies. Well, I don’t have a 3in circle cookie cutter, but I have a pint glass, a wine glass, and a highball glass. So I measured which one was closest to 3in and the stemmed wine glass was the winner! *Disclaimer: I was SUPER careful and I would NOT suggest using this method on a regular basis or if you’re cooking with your kids or even yourself! If the glass broke while cutting out the cookies you’d have to throw away all of your dough and you could hurt yourself. So don’t be dumb like me! Buy the cookie cutter from Michael’s when you buy your meringue powder!

No matter how the cookies turned out I made the decision to have fun with it! I definitely learned a thing or to as well, including how easy it is to make royal icing and how fast you need to work with the royal icing so it doesn’t dry before you’re finished spreading it on the cookie.

I made these cookies for my office for Valentine’s Day. Everybody has been working hard and long hours so I wanted to bring a little holiday cheer! Even though Valentine’s Day is over you could make these for your significant others birthday, a wedding shower, or for any person/event you want to show some love!

Okay, enough chatting. Let’s get baking!

You Will Need:

For the Cookies

• 2 cups all-purpose flower
• ¾ cups confectioners’ sugar
• ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s)
• ¼ granulated sugar
• 1.2 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the Icing

• 2.5 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 5 teaspoons meringue powder
• ¼ cup water, plus more as needed
• ½ teaspoon cherry (or any flavor your choose) extract

Other Tools

• 3in round cookie cutter
• Red food coloring
• 8in lollipop sticks

Let’s Get Cooking!

1. Make the cookies! Pulse the flour, confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, granulated sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add the cubed butter and vanilla extract until the mixture looks crumbly. I had to pulse the mixture several times, stop it and scrap down the sides, a few times to make sure the mixture combined well. When you're done the mixture should look moist and a dark brown color. Keep pulsing until the mixture holds together when pinched.
2. Transfer the dough into a large bowl and press into a ball. Knead the dough and roll it in the bowl until the mixture forms a ball and all of the stray crumbs stick to the ball of dough. Turn the cookie down out onto a large sheet of parchment paper. Place another piece of parchment paper on top on the dough. Using a dough roller, roll the dough until it’s ⅜in thick. Refrigerate the dough (on the parchment paper) in the fridge until firm, about 1 hour.
3. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut out the cookies using a 3in round cookie cutter (or in my case a wine glass ha!). Do not thaw the cookie dough before you cut out the cookies, the dough should be cold.  Arrange them 2in apart on unlined/ungreased cookie sheets. Insert an 8in lollipop stick about ¾ of the way into the cookie. (Bakers Note: I lightly pressed them into the back of the cookie and then used some excess dough to cover up the stick a little bit and then flipped them over to cook so the stick was on the baking sheet). Gather the scraps and reform into a ball and place them in between 2 pieces of parchment paper and refrigerate until ready for the next batch.
4. Bake the cookies for 25-30 minutes, switching halfway through, until the cookies are set. Let cool on the pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling. If you have more dough, remove the dough from the fridge and re roll to 3/8in thick repeating steps 2-4 until all the batter is used.
5. While the cookies are cooling make the icing. Whisk the confectioners’ sugar and meringue
   
   powder in a large bowl. Beat in the ¼ cup water and cherry (or raspberry) extract with a mixer on medium speed until a soft glossy peaks forms, about 3 minutes. Add up to 1 more tablespoon of water as needed so the icing is pipable but not runny. Tint the icing with red food coloring.
6. Decorate the cookies: Transfer about ½ cup icing to a resealable plastic bag and snip the corner. Pipe the icing around the edges of each cookie to form a border around the cookie. Set aside the icing for decorating later. Let set for 10 minutes.
7. Thin the rest of the icing in the bowl until the consistency of runny yogurt, adding 1 teaspoon of water at a time. Transfer this icing into another resealable plastic bag and snip the corner. Use this frosting to fill in the cookies within the circle you just drew on the cookie. Pipe a good amount of frosting into the middle of the cookie and use the back of a spoon, or an offset spatula, carefully spreading the frosting to fill in the cookies. Only do 1 cookie at a time because this icing (royal icing) sets pretty quickly. Let he cookie set about an hour. Pipe the reserved thicker icing that you used to draw the border on the cookie, to detail the cookies drawing on top of the cookies to make a floral design.

Then go celebrate because you did it!!! Phew! You survived! You’re on your way to being the next Food Network Star! I remember feeling exhausted after making these cookies, but also content with trying something new and not having it look like something off of the TV show Nailed It!

If you have any questions while making these comment or let me know!