These delicious cookies are easy to make if you have a kitchen scale and food processor. The recipe uses almost as much cocoa as sugar, creating a European style, intensely chocolate shortbread cookie that melts in your mouth.

Read on if you want to make the best chocolate shortbread cookies ever!

Step 1: Tools and Ingredients

You will need a kitchen scale and a food processor to make these cookies.

There are only 5 ingredients:

2 ounces of high quality cocoa - use the best cocoa you can get
3.2 ounces of brown sugar or coconut sugar - you can increase this for a sweeter cookie
5.8 ounces of cake and pastry flour
1/2 tsp. of baking powder
6.3 ounces of cold, unsalted butter

You will also need a bowl or other container to put the ingredients in and weigh them. I used a measuring cup as a container, but did not use it to measure anything since all ingredients are weighed. This results in more accurate measurements.

NOTE: I've been experimenting with measurements by volume if you don't have a scale and have found that this formula will work, though it is not as accurate as weighing the ingredients:

1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
1/4 tsp salt 1/2 C sugar
1 1/4 C all purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
1/2 pound (2 sticks or 1 cup) unsalted butter, cool

Step 2: Weigh Your Container, and Weigh Dry Ingredients

The first thing to do is weigh your container. This weight, plus the desired weight of your ingredient, will be the total weight you need.

My glass measuring cup weighed 1 lb and 3.8 ounces, which displays as 103.8

The recipe calls for 2 ounces of cocoa. Desired weight of container plus cocoa is 103.8 + 2 = 105.8, so I added cocoa to the container on the scale until the scale read 105.8

Continue in this way for the remaining ingredients, placing all ingredients except the butter in your food processor once weighed.

Step 3: Process Dry Ingredients in Food Processor

This is a quick and easy way to thoroughly and evenly mix all the dry ingredients together.

Step 4: Cut Butter Into Large Chunks and Weigh

Cut the cold butter into chunks. (You will need about 3/4 cup of butter but weigh it for accuracy).

Weigh the butter - you will need 6.3 ounces. Since my container weighed 103.8, the desired weight of container plus butter was 103.8 + 6.3 = 110.1

Step 5: Add Butter to Dry Ingredients

Add the cold butter to the already mixed dry ingredients and process for about a minute or until a thick dough forms. When the dough has formed, it will be heavy and will form a thick clump which is unbalanced in the food processor and no longer mixes well. This is the sign that you are done!

Step 6: Roll Dough Into Balls

Take a spoonful of dough from the food processor and roll it between your hands into a ball.

Place ball on a buttered or parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Continue until you have used all the dough - I made 25 balls.

Step 7: Flatten Balls With a Fork

Flatten each ball with a fork. Dip the fork in water after flattening each cookie to prevent dough from sticking to the fork.

Step 8: Bake Cookies

Bake the flattened cookies for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Step 9: Remove Cookies From Oven

The cookies spread a bit during baking so make sure you leave enough space between them before baking.

Step 10: Enjoy Your Cookies!

These cookies will keep in a cookie tin for several weeks - but will be gobbled up long before that! This recipe makes an intensely chocolatey cookie, with almost as much cocoa as sugar. If you prefer a sweeter cookie, add more sugar to the recipe. You can taste the dough before making the balls, and add sugar to taste.

Enjoy!