Gooey Red Velvet Cookie

Red Velvet is my entire family’s most favourite cake. Maybe it’s all that chocolate flavour with the luscious red colour that’s hard to resist. This holiday season my little chef, Deena, decided to turn our most loved cake into Red Velvet Cookie and she was over the moon to see the gooey, melt in the mouth cookies emerge from the oven.

She declared total ownership of the first batch of cookies and refused to share even a bite with us. She decorated them with another of her sweet favourites, m&ms, colourful chocolate buttons. The cookies looked really yummy and festive but all we could do was to wait for the second batch to come out and meanwhile look at the very creative but selfish little chef gobble up the cookies right in front of our eyes.

I bake my Red Velvet cake with beets and am not a very big fan of adding too much food colour to eatables but to keep things simple for her we added only red food colour to the cookies but still not in an overwhelming quantity. If you would like your cookies to be more bright red in colour you can add more food colour. The best thing about this Gooey Red Velvet Cookie recipe is that at home you stay in control of how much colour you want to add.

Enjoy some colourful moments with your kids in the kitchen baking these yummy and very pretty cookies. We are baking batch after batch to share with our friends because these make perfect edible gifts.

1+1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
4 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 teaspoons red food colour
1 cup MnMs or Smarties

Mix all the dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Add softened ( not melted) butter to another bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on full speed for a minute or till the butter is creamy.

Add add both the sugars and beat on medium speed or till the sugars are combined. Add egg, milk, food colour and vanilla essence. Beat a little more to combine everything.

Add half of the dry ingredients and beat on low speed or mix with a spatula. Add the remaining dry ingredients and combine to make a play dough like soft and pliable dough.

Cover with a plastic sheet and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.

Lightly grease a cookie tray. Divide the dough into 18 equal portions ( almost a heaped tablespoon) and make neat round lemon sized balls.

Place the balls on the cookie sheet at the distance of at least an inch because they expand while baking. Lightly press the balls but don’t press too much to make them flat.

Bake for 12 minutes. Take them out and lightly press again for that wrinkled up effect. Insert the M&Ms into them or sprinkle chocolate chips while they are still hot.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the tray. Store in an airtight jar if baking ahead for an occasion.

Serves 18