Chocolate Butter Cookies are really fun German cookies, and you can make them now at home.
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What are German Chocolate Butter Cookies?
A layer of chocolate is stuck on a butter cookie, and that's a Chocolate Butter Cookie. Both are rectangular, and the chocolate butter cookie is a sandwiched cookie.
I always enjoyed munching these chocolate butter biscuits as a kid!
They are quite common in Europe, in fact, there is a certain German brand in Germany, called Bahlsen who invented these cookies.
Occasionally, these cookies are also called Chocolate Milk Cookies or Chocolate Shortbread cookies.
Initially, when I recreated the recipe, I didn't know how to translate the cookie name from German to English.
In German, we call them Schokoladen Leibniz Kekse or Choco Leibniz.
Ingredients
You can make dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate cookies. The choice is yours.
Here is what you will need in an overview:
- Butter
- Sugar
- Vanilla — Vanilla Bean or Vanilla Bean Paste or Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Sugar
- All Purpose Flour
- Water
- Chocolate for baking
Where to get Chocolate Molds?
Years ago, I came across a silicone mold set to make chocolate butter cookies and, of course, I had to get one for myself!
You will need a silicone mold set to mold the chocolate. You can get a full set, or single rectangular shaped molds.
Look out for molds with a reduced depth, and they don't need to be rectangular, but it's easier to assemble the cookies with the chocolate piece when they are rectangular or square.
Use only silicone because it's a flexible material to get the delicate chocolates out of the mold.
My molds are Christmas themed, but you can make these with all season neutral designs too.
How to make the cookies?
To make these biscuits is actually more than simple. You just require some patience and if you enjoy preparing cookies from scratch all year round, then these cookies might just be your thing.
Step 1
Prepare the cookie dough, a shortbread dough, by combining all the ingredients to a smooth dough.
Step 2
Leave the dough to cool and rest for 1 hour so that it hardens a bit.
Step 3
Roll out the dough and cut out your cookies with your cookie cutter shapes.
Step 4
Spread cut out raw cookies on a baking sheet.
Bake until golden.
Step 5
In the meanwhile, melt chocolate.
Pour chocolate into silicone molds.
Wait for the chocolate to cool and harden.
Step 6
Take the hard shaped chocolate out of the mold.
Keep some melted chocolate at the side, which will act as a glue and stick the chocolate shape on a cookie.
Step 7
Repeat with all the cookies and store them.
📖 Recipe
German Chocolate Butter Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
For the Butter Shortbread Cookie
- 1 stick + 1Tsp Butter
- ¼ Cup Sugar
- Vanilla Vanilla Bean, vanilla paste, extract, or vanilla sugar, *See Notes
- 1¼ Cup All Purpose Flour
- 3 Tablespoon Water adjust, you might need less or little more
For the Chocolate
- 10 Ounces Chocolate *see Notes
Instructions
For the Butter Shortbread Cookie
- Make a smooth paste by combining the soft butter and sugar in a bowl.
- Add the vanilla to the butter sugar mix. If you are using vanilla bean, slit open the vanilla bean and scratch out the tiny black seeds. If you are using vanilla bean paste, extract or sugar, just add the vanilla flavoring to the preliminary dough.
- First, add the flour and a small amount of water to the mixing bowl, followed by a thorough mixing process to produce a smooth dough. Add more of the water if the dough is too dry, but be carefully with adding water because if your dough is too sticky, you will have to add a small quantity of flour to adjust the consistency. The dough shouldn't stick, and it shouldn't crumble either. The dough should hold together without separating.
- Wrap the dough into clean wrap and place into the fridge. Cool for 1 hour. *See Notes
- Just before rolling out the dough, preheat your oven to 320 Fahrenheit (160 °C).
- Roll out the dough with enough flour so that it doesn't stick. The dough should be about 0.1 inch or 3 mm thick.
- Bake the cookies at 320 Fahrenheit (160 °C) for about 15 minutes, or until lightly golden. Leave your cookies to cool after baking.
- Melt your chocolate in a Bain Marie (pot with water and another pot over that containing the chocolate) so that the chocolate doesn't burn.
- Pour the chocolate into the mold and let cool for 20 minutes.
- Once your chocolate has cooled and hardened, add some melted chocolate onto the biscuit side to glue it on and stick the molded chocolate onto the shortbread cookie.
- Store the biscuits in a cookie tin box or plastic container (please see storing instructions in post for your climate).
Notes
- For the Vanilla choose either vanilla bean, vanilla bean paste, vanilla extract or vanilla sugar. For the base recipe, extract from one vanilla bean, or use about ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste, or a few drops of vanilla extract or about 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar. You can also adjust it to your liking.
- You can use Dark Chocolate and/or White Chocolate and/or Milk Chocolate
- The quantity of water that you have to add to your dough highly depends on your flour quality and your environment. For example, I found that a humid climate would require less water and a dry climate somehow results is much drier flour.
- The dough needs to be cooled for 1 hour so that it hardens in the cool environment. Your shortbread dough will only roll out if you have it cooled first. Keep in mind, the more you touch your dough with your warm fingers, the more the butter will melt again, and that makes the rolling and cutting out part more challenging.
Equipment
- 1 Bowl or kitchen dough kneader to mix and prepare the dough
- Cookie Cutter
- Silicone Chocolate Molds see post for recommendations
Nutrition
Storing
Store your cookies in a cookie tin box or closed food box (depends on your climate).
In a dry climate, lay out the tin box with parchment paper and stack the cookies carefully over each other.
In a humid climate, lay out a plastic Tupperware-style box with parchment paper and stack the cookies over each other. Close well with the lid.
Keep the box away from direct sunlight and humidity (i.e., basement). We keep the boxes on a shelf in our pantry.
Additionally, if you live in a dry climate, cover the cookies in the tin box with a layer of parchment and place a piece of apple peel over the parchment and close the lid.
The cookies won't turn out too dry with the apple peel in the box.
If stored properly as per instruction, they will be good for at least 1–2 months. I recommend labeling the box so that you know when you baked them.
What a beautiful cookie and it's great to be made without eggs. Nicely done!
So colourful and beautiful, it is on my to do list for this weekend since this is a great recipe to enjoy with my family, thanks for sharing!
Prachi Gupta
They are so beautiful! I love the chocolate mould too.