Dark Chocolate Football Cookies

As if being interfatih wasn't enough religions for one house, my husband has another religion to call his own, sports.  He doesn't discriminate, he loves them all.  Early in our courtship he tried to convince me of this mythical month when there were no sports on (February) and yet I can't really think of a time when sports are not on a TV in my house.  While he loves all sports, no sport is more important to him than football.

You know those fun superbowl (and less important game) parties where everyone sits around eating and drinking and generally having a good time?  The get-togethers that make watching football more fun for someone who is slightly less interested.  Well, we almost never go to those because if the Packers are playing my husband doesn't really like to hang out with other people because they talk too much and interfere with his concentration on the game.

For the rest of you football widows out there, you know that even though he is a Packers fan, he will, and wants to, watch every other game as well.  Now even though football season has just started, in my house it gets kicked off in mid August with fantasy football drafts.  If you don't know what fantasy football is, count yourself lucky.  Josh participates in multiple leagues and he recently hosted his first draft at our house.  This league is his old fraternity brothers, aptly named the "Old Farts" League.  Way back when we were in college I used to send him to his weekly meetings with homemade cookies for the guys so two times a year when they congregate at my house for drafts (yes they do a baseball league too) I hearken back to those days and make treats for the guys to enjoy.

As much as I may tire of football season, draft night is always something I look forward to (now that he consults with me on when to schedule it) because I get a mom's night out while Jake stays home with the boys for what he has named "Daddy's sticker party". 

Sorry for that rambling intro.  Onto the cookies.  This year I couldn't decide what to make.  I kept waffling back and forth until I was about 5 hours away from the party and still didn't have a treat.  Whoops!  I had recently made these delicious Dark Chocolate cookies by Averie Cooks and while mine came out flat, they were sinfully good.  I thought with a couple of tweaks, I could make them thematic for tonight's draft.

Start out by creaming together the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla.

Then it is time to add the dry ingredients.  I find that cocoa powder gets kind of clumpy and nothing is worse than picking up a delectable treat and biting down on a little clump of dry, unmixed cocoa powder.  To solve this problem I sifted all of the dry ingredients together and then added them in.  To help them be a little less flat I replaced the baking soda with baking powder and I added some kosher salt to cut the sweetness.  Once I had my dry ingredients sifted and mixed into the wet I was ready to go.

I busted out my new Reynold's pan lining paper and lined a small rimmed baking sheet.   Use a rubber spatula to press the cookie dough into the baking sheet.  I was hurrying so I didn't do this very smoothly.  Don't be like me, or do and love them anyway.

Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes.  (I got distracted so these stayed in for 10 minutes and were a little bit dry, but as I mentioned, I was in a time crunch so I couldn't start over.)

Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and lift the pan lining paper off the cookie sheet.  Then cool completely on a wire rack.

Now for the fun part, get a football cookie cutter and trying to keep them as close together as possible, cut out your footballs.  I love doing this instead of just rolling out a dough and cutting cookies out raw because the edges puff up and you lose some of the clarity of the shape.  More importantly, you are left with all of those little scraps to devour while your little one is napping and no one can rat you out. If they are scraps, I'm pretty sure they don't have any calories ;)

Now if you stop here, you will have some nice brown oval shaped cookies, but to really make them look like footballs you will need a little icing.

I used the white icing writer because it is super easy to use and as you can see I don't have the steadiest hand, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand.  Use the icing to draw the laces onto the football.

Ta da!  Football cookies with minimal fuss and only 1 bowl to clean.  Enjoy!


I'm linking up with Retro Repin, Tasty Thursdays, Link Party Palooza, Show Stopper Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday, Sweet & Savoury Sundays, Bakerette, Marvelous Monday, Mix It Up Monday, Manic Monday, and Inspiration Monday.