This herd of chocolate reindeer is perfect for your upcoming kid-friendly holiday parties and gatherings.  This recipe is always my favorite to make because it creates the most laughs. The chocolate dough does need to refrigerate, so keep that in mind before making this recipe with littles. Perhaps you want to make the dough the night before, so when your helpers are ready you can get right to business, their attention span is short, maximize it! Also, you decorate these cute little fellas BEFORE you bake them. Opposite to our classic sugar cookie.
This year, we did not factor in the time it took to chill the dough, so my little Chloe stayed up well past her bed time (10:00pm) to complete these cookies. After about 8:30pm, she turns into a complete jokester. We were laughing so hard that we had a difficult time just baking these cookies, and we probably doubled our time since we were goofing around so much. But that is what cookie bake weekend is all about, good laughs and stories we can keep telling year after year. Memories.
I hope you enjoy these playful cookies as much as we do, Fun Friyay!
Chocolate Reindeer 
Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp.
• 1.5 cups granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, Vermont Nut Free Chocolate
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 72 small pretzels for antlers
• 72 milk chocolate candy pieces for eyes, Vermont Skippers
• 36 small red gumdrops or red hots for the nose

Directions

1. Cream the butter in electric mixer
2. Add sugar, cocoa, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt
3. beat until combined
4. beat in eggs
5. add vanilla, keep mixing
6. Beat in as much flour as your mixer will allow, hand stir in the rest if it doesn’t fit.
7. Divide dough into 6 equal portions. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 3 hours in the fridge.
8. On a lightly floured surface, roll our each dough ball into a circle, 6 inches in diameter.
9. Using a knife (i like pizza cutter) cut into six wedges (we did 8, just like pizza)
10. Place wedges two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet, push the pretzels in for antlers, chocolate skippers in for eyes, and red hot for nose.
11. Bake in a 375* oven for 7-9 minutes. Do not overbake. I bake for exactly 7 minutes. If your reindeer start to have cracks or lines in their faces, you’re baking too long. They should be smooth like gingerbread cookies.
12. Makes 36 large cookies.
13. We trippled the batch, and it was WAY too  much. A double batch is OK.

 

Until next year, cookie bakers! We’ll make a few more before Santa arrives, but our big bake is complete! Hope you enjoy some of these!!
Love + Hugs from these two French-Norwegian Babes!