I have been eying a set of cookie stamps for the longest time, so when I finally received them as a birthday gift this year, I knew I had to use them in my Christmas cookie line up.  I scoured the internet for fun pressed cookie ideas, and finally landed on these Chocolate Stamped Cookies from Curly Girl Kitchen.  Since it’s not my recipe, I’ll post the link for you to click through to the Curly Girl Kitchen site if you want to make these too: Click here if you want to make them!

I loved the way these turned out.  The chocolate flavor is very rich, and the final flavor and texture is very similar to a brownie.  The icing adds that extra contrast between the peaks and valleys of the stamped cookie, and made them look extra Christmas-y, like they were coated in a layer of ice and snow.  The stamping process was really fun, although allow enough room in your fridge to keep everything cold, both before and after stamping.  Once I got in a good rhythm of stamping, cooling, and baking, I was able to knock a double batch of these out in a couple of hours.  I did 6 cookies per tray to allow enough time for re-cooling before baking (about 15-20 minutes) and had a rotation of 4 cookie sheets going to keep everything moving.

If you’ve never worked with stamped cookies before, I learned that the cookies look prettier if you remove the scraps around the edge of the mold with your finger and press any ragged edges back into the bottom of the stamped cookie before removing.  The recipe in Curly Girl Kitchen recommended using a cookie cutter to remove the scraps, but that didn’t work for me as I didn’t have any cookie cutters in the same shape and size as my molds.  So, a little clean up before popping out of the molds worked great.  Keeping everything cold is key – it’s much easier to pop the cookies out of the molds if it’s still cold, once it gets too warm you’ll start to deform them a bit trying to get them out.  Anyway, unleash your inner childhood Play-Doh experience, and your cookies will turn out fabulously!

If you’ve ever wanted to give stamped cookies a try, this is a great recipe to start with.  I don’t know if this will work as a rolled and cut cookie, so stick with the cookie stamps if you have them.  I also think these cookies would be great to make any time of year, but I do feel that they are a fabulous addition to my Christmas cookie line-up.  Recipe linked again here if you need it!

Happy baking, friends!