Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Some may save red velvet for a special occasion, I say any day is a great day for red velvet! No special occasion needed. I made some Red Velvet Cupcakes last week for a friend who was hosting a birthday party and it inspired me to create another red velvet dessert. These cookies are a combination of two of my all time favorite desserts, those Red Velvet Cupcakes and Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

These lightly chocolaty, deliciously chewy, gorgeously red cookies are simply fantastic!  In my opinion red velvet isn't chocolate, if I wanted a chocolate dessert I'd make a chocolate dessert. Red velvet to me is a combination of vanilla and chocolate, one shouldn't really overpower the other. That's why when I make red velvet recipes they are somewhat mild on the cocoa. Plus when you use too much cocoa it depletes that beautiful red color, it turns it more of a brownish auburn shade rather than a velvety red. I also tried making these cookies with half brown sugar and half granulated sugar and that even hid the red color due to the deep brown shade of the molasses in the brown sugar, so the brown sugar was out. 

These cookies would also be delicious if you were to omit the white chips and instead frost them with Cream Cheese frosting. If you personally prefer a really chocolaty red velvet, I would say rather than adding more cocoa to the dough just add milk chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips in place of the white chocolate chips.

And to all you early holiday Pinners out there (I'm definitely not talking about myself =), these would go great on the Christmas or Valentines Day list. Enjoy!

{Updated} Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies***

Yields about 3 dozen



Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder*

1 1/2 tsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

8 Tbsp butter, at room temperature

6 Tbsp all vegetable shortening, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 tsp white vinegar


1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp red food coloring

1 1/3 cups white chocolate chips, divided



Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking soda and salt, set aside. Add butter, shortening and sugar to the bowl of an electric stand mixer and mix on medium speed until very pale and fluffy about 4 minutes. Add egg and egg yolk and mix until combine. Add vinegar, vanilla and food coloring and mix until well blended. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix just until combine. Mix in 1/2 cup white chocolate chips. Scoop dough out by the heaping tablespoonfuls (about 1 1/2 Tbsp) and roll into balls and place on buttered or Silpat lined cookie sheets. Gently press about 6 white chocolate chips into the top of each cookie, being careful not to flatten the cookies (if you do flatten them a bit just reshape them to the height they had before adding the chips) and bake in preheated oven 8 - 9 minutes. Allow to cool several minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Store cookies in an airtight container.



*If you want a more chocolaty cookie you could replace 1 - 2 Tbsp flour with an additional 1 -2 Tbsp cocoa, the red just won't be quite as vibrant. Or, you could replace the white chocolate chips with chocolate chips.



**Note: this recipe has been completely revised as of 9/7/12 due to comments stating cookies are flat and not red enough. I myself thought them to be flat. This recipe completely eliminates both of those issues. These are thick, vibrantly red and completely delicious (they better be, these were my 4th batch. Fourth times a charm right =).



***Anyone wanting the original recipe I posted back in August, I finally found it thanks to Break It, Make It, or Bake it, thanks Audrey! She posted it before I had deleted my first version and added in the revised version above. To be honest I like the ones below best I just got a few complaints that they were flat and not red enough so I added the recipe above in hopes of solving the issue for the complaints. The recipe below is also the ones that are pictured:



{My Original} Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies



Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp distilled white vinegar

1 large egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp red food coloring

3/4 cup white chocolate chips, divided


Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, whip together butter, sugar and vinegar until pale and fluffy, about 3 - 4 minutes. Mix in egg. Add in vanilla and red food coloring and mix until blended. With mixer set on low speed, slowly add in dry ingredients and mix just until combine. Mix in white chocolate chips (note: I mixed in half of the white chocolate chips then set aside the other half to press into the tops of the rolled dough balls so more of them show through when baking...but I just noticed over at Gonna Want Seconds that she just pressed some extra white chocolate chips into the tops of cookies AFTER baking, genius!). Scoop dough out by the heaping tablespoonfuls and shape into balls. Transfer to Silat or parchment paper lined baking sheets and bake in preheated oven 9 - 11 minutes. Allow to cool on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Store cookies in an airtight container. 



Recipe Source: Cooking Classy

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