Add a little whimsy to your (or someone else’s) Super Bowl party with these cute little Chocolate Football Cookies. They’re not a lot of effort, nor a lot of ingredients. You don’t even need a football-shaped cutter, you can use a simple circle.

In about two hours time, you can make the dough, roll it out, cut the shapes, bake them, then cool and frost. No need to refrigerate the dough between making the batter and  rolling it out. Of course, they will have to “air dry” for a couple of hours before you can stack or pack them.

I used the largest of my circles which made about three dozen 3-inch footballs.

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
2. In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy.
3. On low, add in eggs, vanilla and cocoa and blend on medium speed until smooth.
   
   
4. Gradually add in flour, salt and baking powder and mix until smooth. Form dough into two balls.
   
5. Roll out one ball of dough on floured surface or pastry cloth. The thicker you roll, the chewier the cookie. (I like mine a bit firm, so I make them about 1/8″ thick.)
   
   
6. Using a large circle cookie cutter, press down into the dough, then overlap the circle to get a football shape. Place onto a parchment-lined baking sheet about 1 inch apart to allow for spread (although mine barely spread at all).
   
   
7. Gather leftover dough, reform into a ball, roll out again, and cut more shapes. Repeat as necessary until all the dough has been used.
   
8. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes (depending on thickness) until the edges are firm. Mine took 12 minutes.
   
9. Gently slide the parchment paper off of the baking sheet onto a flat surface. Cool completely to allow the cookies to set, 15-20 minutes.
   
10. Once cooled, frost as desired using Royal Icing (my choice), melted white chocolate or purchased white icing. You can do this right on the used parchment sheets.
    
    
    Fly Eagles Fly!!!!