Reagents required:
- 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 3 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Safety note: wear gloves, this procedure involves touching the dough with your hands, a lot.
Make sure oven is set to 350°F
Melt 3 sticks butter
Add butter and 1C sugar to mixing bowl
mix sugar and butter thoroughly
Add 3.75c all purpose flour
Add .25 tsp salt
Add 1.33Csugar
Add 0.75c cocoa powder
Add 1Tbsp vanilla extract
Add 2 egg yolks
mix until consistent and cohesive, this will likely require kneading.
for all dough
place some amount of dough onto cookie sheet and flatten with palm of hand, should be >3" in diameter and ~.25" thick and flat (no texture/bumps)
press outline cutter into dough and apply pressure around perimeter to ensure a good cut
The dough should just make it to the angled part of the cookie cutter, if not, adjust height on next cookie
remove cookie cutter
removed excess dough
get more dough and repeat cookie blanking until cookie sheet is full
press stamp into each cookie by pushing on two opposite edges, examine result to see if enough pressure was applied. A cookie can be stamped twice if you're careful.
bake cookies on sheet for 9 minutes
(at this point, running multiple parallel sheets is suggested)
after baking, use a spatula to move cookies onto drying rack
This is the easiest step to break cookies at, they almost always break teeth off the gears. Make sure that cookies are rotated and aligned such that all gear teeth are supported and they do not fall in between wires on rack.
Wait as long as possible for cookies to cool completely before transferring to a storage container as cookie structural integrity is inversely proportional to temperature. Having a fan blow on cookies to help cooling is suggested.