Chocolate Christmas Cookies

The cracks come from a cold, sticky dough spreading under a dry sugar shell, so two things matter. Chill the dough until it is firm enough to roll, at least two hours and ideally overnight, and bake straight from the fridge. Then roll each ball in granulated sugar first and powdered sugar second. The granulated layer keeps the powdered sugar from dissolving into the dough, which is why some batches come out of the oven looking glazed instead of snowy. Roll generously; a thin coat disappears. If the cookies spread flat with no cracks, the dough was too warm or the oven too cool.

Either works, as long as you use the one the recipe was written for. Natural cocoa is acidic and reacts with baking soda; Dutch-process has been alkalized, which rounds off the sharp edge and is why so many recipes pair it with baking powder. Swap one for the other in a recipe that leans on baking soda alone and the cookie can bake flat and pale. Black Cocoa is Dutch-process taken further: a near-black crumb with little to no food coloring and a smooth, low-acidity flavor. Swap it in for a third to half of the cocoa, or use it straight in a recipe that calls for Dutch-process, and the cookie goes from brown to near-black.

Cool them completely, then store them airtight at room temperature with a slice of sandwich bread in the container. The cookies pull moisture from the bread instead of the air, and crinkles, soft chocolate drops and sandwich cookies stay tender for five to seven days. Keep crisp cookies, like shortbread and spritz, in a separate tin or they soften too. For longer, freeze the baked cookies in a single layer, then bag them; most chocolate cookies freeze for two to three months and thaw in an hour on the counter. Cookies rolled in powdered sugar are the exception: freeze the dough balls instead and sugar them just before baking.

Change the cocoa, not the dye. Black Cocoa is ultra-Dutched until it bakes near-black on its own, with little to no food coloring, so a chocolate sugar cookie, a crinkle or a sandwich cookie built on it comes out the color of a classic cookies-and-cream cookie. Start by swapping a third of the recipe's cocoa for Black Cocoa and go up from there; a 50/50 blend with Dutch-Process Cocoa is where most bakers land, dark enough to read as black with the rounder flavor of the Dutch. A teaspoon of Espresso Powder deepens the flavor to match the color.

Because coffee makes chocolate taste more like chocolate. A teaspoon of Espresso Powder in a batch of dough sharpens the cocoa notes and knocks back some of the sweetness, without the cookie tasting like coffee; most people cannot pick it out, they just notice the chocolate is deeper. It dissolves straight into the dough with no grit, so there is nothing to bloom or dissolve first. Use it in crinkles, double chocolate cookies and thumbprints with ganache. In a peppermint cookie, keep it to half a teaspoon so the mint stays in front.

Sturdy, dry-surfaced cookies travel best. Crinkles, chocolate shortbread, slice-and-bake pinwheels and chocolate sandwich cookies with a firm filling all hold up stacked in a tin with parchment between the layers. Chocolate thumbprints survive if the center is set ganache or jam rather than a soft caramel. Skip anything dipped in chocolate or topped with a soft glaze unless the box stays cool, and leave frosted cookies for the plate. Pack the tin full so nothing slides, and ship early in the week so the box is not sitting in a warehouse over the weekend.