Mexican Chocolate Icebox Cookies Recipe
Email
Classic icebox cookies get spiced up with Mexican chocolate. For different personality types on your holiday list, we’ve got variations: coconut-date for the racy adventurer, and Meyer lemon and black pepper for the subtle sophisticate, and sugar cookies for the purist. Or maybe they’re just all for you.
What to buy: Mexican chocolate such as Ibarra or Abuelita is available at Latino grocery stores. It comes in disks. If you can’t find Mexican chocolate, you can approximate the flavor by using 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 2 cups coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate. Add the cinnamon to the dry ingredients.
Game plan: Make extra batches, wrap them in plastic, and freeze for later use. To finish, take them out of the freezer, and then slice and bake them as directed. The dough can be frozen up to a month.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 cups finely chopped Mexican chocolate, such as Ibarra
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cayenne, and salt in a medium mixing bowl to aerate the mixture and break up any lumps. Set aside.
- Combine butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add milk and vanilla and blend well. Scrape down bowl, add egg, and mix well. Reduce mixer to low, add flour mixture, and mix until just incorporated. Fold in chopped chocolate.
- Turn dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, shape it into a log (approximately 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter), and wrap tight. Place in the refrigerator until firm, at least 1 hour but preferably 8 hours.
- When ready to bake the cookies, heat oven to 350°F and arrange rack in the middle. Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator and slice into 1/4-inch thick rounds. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until golden brown on the bottom, about 12 minutes.
Chopping Mexican chocolate is not worth it. I went the brownie method route: melted 4 oz. with a stick of butter, and when cool incorporated sugar & wets (minus unnecessary milk). The whole make-a-log-and-slice deal has disappointed me in the past, so I went with tsp sized balls and rolled them in powdered sugar/cinnamon/cayenne before baking. Cookies spread to two bite soft centered beauties. Great basic recipe! Will have to try again and see what milk does in non-chocolate versions.
I kind of screwed up making these and they still turned out great. I made the mistake of chopping the Ibarra in my tiny food processor, but instead of small chips it turned into a powder. My second mistake was jamming too many on a sheet and they crowded together into rectangles. They did wind up nice and crispy and the flavor was terrific. A good hit of cinnamon with a back end punch of cayenne.
Chopping Ibarra chocolate rounds is no easy task. My Kitchen Aid processor kept throwing the belt, so I chopped with a heavy bladed knife but couldn't chop very fine. Left bar in 'frig overnight, then in freezer for about 3/4 hour. Slicing was difficult because the chocolate pieces were a little big, but I had no trouble reforming them (I wonder why one couldn't just make these as drop cookies and pat them down!) Very interesting flavor but the Mexican chocolate gives them a slightly grainy texture, and, for my taste, they are a little too sweet.
bardougma April 2009
I made these with Abuelita chocolate and froze the dough for about 30 minutes before slicing. My cookies turned out crisp and delicious--perfect for dunking in a cup of coffee.
My tips: Refrigerating the dough didn't make it firm enough to slice easily, so I think the freezer is key. Also, these would be good with finely chopped toasted pecans or walnuts (something slightly bitter to counter the sweet and spicy nature of the cookies).
A great recipe !
The first time I made these I used the dough out of the fridge (overnight) and baked for 12 minutes...Overdone and too crispy. The second time I had the dough frozen, let it sit out for 10 minutes and baked for 10-11 minutes. Delicious.
Also, I used my Cuisinart chopper to "finely chop" the chocolate and it was almost powdery, so I hand chopped about 1/2 to have some more "chunks". I wasn't clear if it was supposed to be small chunks or very finely chopped, but mine looked sorta like the photo.