Soft Valentine’s Day Chocolate Raspberry Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
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When I think of Valentine’s Day flavors, I think of chocolate and raspberry. Therefore, these chocolate raspberry cookies are the perfect treat for your Valentine’s Day.
Using freeze dried raspberries is key to this raspberry buttercream recipe. Raspberry buttercream with freeze dried raspberries will create the perfect consistency needed for stable buttercream.
The raspberry buttercream is also a crusting buttercream and an American buttercream. This means that the frosting is perfect for piping and decorating our chocolate cut out sugar cookies.
The chocolate sugar cookie recipe includes a secret, not so common ingredient, to make them fudgy. Sometimes cut out chocolate sugar cookies only look chocolaty, there is no denying these tasting like chocolate.
Follow along for the recipe for these chocolate raspberry cookies that will bring a smile to your Valentine.
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Delicious Chocolate Cut Out Cookie Recipe
For these chocolate raspberry cookies, you will first need to make the chocolate cut out sugar cookies.
You will need flour, white & brown sugar, butter, cocoa powder, an egg, vanilla extract, avocado oil (or your preferred oil), and my secret ingredient, chocolate fudge pudding.
The chocolate fudge pudding has two great benefits:
- One, the cookies are jam packed with chocolate flavor. I’ve heard people describe these cookies as brownie cookies and I’m not complaining!
- Two, the pudding has gelatin in it which will help make these a no-chill, no-spread, sugar cookie.
The first step is to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. We want to make sure the oven is already to temperature so we don’t need to chill the dough.
Next, measure out three cups of flour into a large sized mixing bowl. Remember to use the scoop and level method. That is, use a spoon to scoop some flour into a measuring cup. Once you are near the top of the cup, level out the cup. With this method, you don’t need to sift the flour.
Mix in the 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and the 3.9 ounce package of Chocolate Fudge Instant Jello pudding mix.
Once your dry ingredients are mixed together, go ahead and set that aside.
In your electric mixer, combine 3/4 cup of white granulated sugar, 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar, and 1 cup of cold salted butter. Mix those ingredients until well combined.
Once it is creamed together, add in your egg, teaspoon of vanilla extract, and one tablespoon of avocado oil. Mix until the egg is combined well.
Using the spoon you used for the scoop and level method, slowly add in the dry ingredients. It’s best to turn off the mixer in between each addition of dry ingredients so that the butter and egg don’t overheat. Plus, it helps avoid a big powdery explosion in the kitchen.
Once all of the flour is mixed in, assess the state of the dough. It should be slightly crumbly but still combine together if you pick some up with your hand and squeeze it. If it is too crumbly, add in more canola oil, a tablespoon at a time. I find that two tablespoons is perfect for me.
Prepare a clean spot to roll out the dough and sprinkle some flour onto it. Some people like to use cocoa powder for this to keep the cookies nice and dark. For this recipe, I recommend using flour as the cocoa powder gives the cookies a bitter taste.
Roll out the dough to 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch thick.
When rolling out the dough, I like to grab just half of the dough at a time. I find that is the perfect size to roll out and fit cookies onto my silicone lined baking sheet.
Rolling out too much dough at once overworks the dough and thus, makes it warmer than we want. Overworking the dough also leads to creases in the baked dough, which isn’t that pretty.
Cut out the cookies and then place them onto the lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for 9-10 minutes until the dough doesn’t look wet in the center or the edges start to golden. Be careful not to overcook these ones! With the cookie being so dark, you cannot rely on the “golden edges” for doneness.
I like to check on these cookies at the 9 minute mark by pulling them out of the oven and looking at the centers. If they are wet, place them back in for a minute. Sometimes, they will form a small bubble on the top which means they are done, but they don’t always do that.
It is better to slightly undercook the cookies than to overcook them, as they will continue to cook on the cookie sheet.
Another tip for success that I highly recommend doing with these cookies is to allow these cookies to cool completely on the sheet. Once cooled, set them in an airtight container and freeze them overnight.
When you are ready to decorate, pull the cookies out of the freezer 30-60 minutes prior to decorating. Don’t attempt to grab the individual cookies until completely defrosted, otherwise they may break.
Freezing the cookies right after baking locks in the moisture, bringing out that brownie quality we all love and want!
How to Make Raspberry Buttercream With Freeze Dried Raspberries
Preparing the Freeze Dried Raspberries
You can go about this raspberry buttercream with freeze dried raspberries a couple of ways:
- Use freeze dried whole or sliced raspberries, either store bought or homemade OR
- Use powdered freeze dried raspberries
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- RASPBERRIES ALL YEAR ROUND: Organic Raspberry Powder allows you to make anything taste of raspberries even when they aren’t in season.
- FIBER BOOSTER: Like all berries, raspberries are packed with fiber, and so is raspberry powder that will enrich any dish you add it to.
- RICH IN ANTIOXIDANTS: Raspberries are among the top berries due to high content of multiple antioxidants that benefit your wellbeing.
- NATURAL FOOD COLORING: Use organic red raspberry powder to color your yogurts, smoothies, cookies, pancakes, or muffins red.
- GREAT INGREDIENT FOR BAKING: Make any baked goodies you make original by adding some raspberry powder.
- 100% natural, pure, no additives or preservatives, fillers free, vegan, gluten free, Non GMO
- 7 Ounces Freeze dried red raspberry powder in light pink color for food flavoring, coloring, and baking
- Packed in Shaker Bottle for optimal safety and freshness
- Red raspberries as whole foods has a great source of essential Amino Acids, Fatty Acids, and Minerals
- Make frozen raspberry juice drink, berries smoothies, raspberry lemonade, and mixed berry desserts
Using already powdered freeze dried raspberries will save you a step, but the powdered form tends to be more difficult to find in stores.
If you freeze dry your own raspberries or want to buy freeze dried raspberries, you will need to grind them up first.
To grind the raspberries up into a powder, use a food processor. Simply process the raspberries until they are a fine powder. The finer, the better. If you don’t mind larger bits of raspberry in your frosting, then it doesn’t have to be super fine.
Do keep in mind that if you are using whole raspberries, you won’t be able to decorate cookies with a small tip size, such as a Wilton #5 or smaller.
For this reason, I prefer to purchase already ground freeze dried raspberries. I was easily able to decorate some chocolate heart sugar cookies with raspberry buttercream using a tip #5. No clogging at all!
You will use a third to a half of a cup of freeze dried raspberry powder in the buttercream.
Making the Raspberry Buttercream Frosting
Take two sticks of unsalted butter out of the refrigerator and allow them to come to room temperature. Two sticks of butter is equivalent to one cup, or 8 ounces.
Alternatively, you can use salted butter or even half salted and half unsalted butter. This will depend on how sweet you want your frosting. Skip the salt for more sweet and use salt for less sweet.
While you wait for the butter to come to room temperature, make the powdered/ground up freeze dried raspberries if needed.
If you have powdered freeze dried raspberries already, you can skip this step.
Once the butter has come to room temperature, add it to a stand mixer and beat it with the paddle attachment on medium speed.
Cream the butter until it is lighter in color and all of the lumps are gone.
Turn off the stand mixer and add in four cups of powdered confectioner’s sugar. Four cups is a lot, yes. However, I promise the flavors will all balance out.
We use four cups of powdered sugar in order for the frosting to form a slight crust. All that means is that the outer layer of frosting will dry to the touch. This helps keep fingers cleaned when picking up the cookies & cupcakes.
With the four cups of powdered sugar, add in a third of a cup of powdered freeze dried raspberries, one tablespoon of of vanilla extract, and two tablespoons of milk.
Cover the stand mixer with a clean towel or a paper towel and mix on low/stir. Once the frosting is coming together, remove the towel and keep mixing.
If the frosting is thicker than a creamy peanut butter consistency, add more milk. Keep in mind, the freeze dried raspberries will create a thicker buttercream since the raspberries are pulling for moisture, so you will add more milk than usual.
Do not turn the mixer higher than low. If needed, use a rubber spatula to stir the frosting. Overmixing buttercream can cause air bubbles. If you do overmix, here’s a post on how to fix it. I promise it’s not terribly hard to fix, but, as always, prevention is better.
Now for the best part – perform a taste test. Is the raspberry flavor strong enough for you? You can add up to a half cup (total) of the powdered raspberry powder. I find a third of a cup to be perfect for my taste buds, but we are all different!
Next, is the frosting too sweet for you? I am used to American buttercream recipes because I use it to decorate buttercream sugar cookies. However, some people find an American buttercream to be too sweet. If you want to cut the sweetness a bit, add in some salt.
Store this raspberry buttercream with freeze dried raspberries in an icing bag on the counter for a few hours while decorating.
You can also store in an air tight container on the counter for several hours, in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to three months.
Soft Chocolate Raspberry Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- Mixing Bowl
- Rolling Pin
- Cookie Cutters
- Cookie Sheet
- Icing bag
- Wilton tip #5
Ingredients
Chocolate Cut Out Sugar Cookies
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 package Chocolate Fudge instant pudding mix 3.9 ounce package
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup cold salted butter
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-3 tbsp avocado oil see instructions
Raspberry Buttercream
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature, can use salted if you want to cut the sweetness
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- ⅓-½ cup freeze dried raspberries powdered
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 2-6 tbsp. whole milk
Instructions
Chocolate Cut Out Sugar Cookies
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix your flour, cocoa powder, and Chocolate Fudge pudding mix together. When measuring the flour, make sure to scoop up the flour with a spoon and add it to your measuring cup, one spoonful at a time. This helps obtain the correct amount of flour without needing to weigh it. Once you have a cup, level it out by running a knife across the top of the measuring cup.
- In your electric mixer, combine the white and brown sugars with the butter using the paddle attachment until they are creamed together.
- Add in your egg, 1 tablespoon avocado oil, and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
- Slowly add in the flour, cocoa powder, and pudding mixture to the wet ingredients and combine. The combined mixture will be crumbly but still form a ball if picked up and molded into a ball. If it is too crumbly, add in another tablespoon of oil.
- On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about a 1/4 of an inch thick & cut out your cookies. A great tip is to flour your rolling pin and any cookie cutters you may be using. Transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
- Bake for 9-10 minutes and let cool on the baking sheet. The dough will be done when the center of the dough doesn’t look wet. It is better to undercook the cookies than to overcook them, as it will be difficult to watch for burns with these dark sugar cookies.
- Optional but highly suggested: Place the cooled cookies into an airtight container and freeze them overnight. Remove the container from the freezer 1 hour before decorating for soft brownie chocolate cut out cookies.
Raspberry Buttercream
- In the stand mixer, cream the butter until it is lighter in color and fluffier.
- Add in the powdered sugar, a third of a cup of powdered freeze dried raspberries, the vanilla extract, and two tablespoons of milk. Use the rubber spatula to mix the ingredients together a bit before covering the stand mixer and mixing on low until creamy.
- If the raspberry buttercream is too stiff for what you need to frost, add more whole milk and mix on low.
- Place the buttercream into an icing bag with a Wilton round tip, such as the tip #5.
Decorating the Valentine Chocolate Raspberry Cookies
- Outline and fill in the chocolate heart cookies with the raspberry buttercream. Allow the cookies to form a crust at room temperature for 8 hours for best taste and texture.
Notes
Add the buttercream to a piping bag. I decided to make some chocolate cut out sugar cookie hearts, perfect for Valentine’s Day.
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