Harry Potter sorting hat cookies 2 ways

Sorting hat made with chocolate butter cookie dough

It’s here. The final Harry Potter flick. To celebrate the Friday opening, I’m coming up with Hogwarts-inspired eats all week. First up, sorting hat cookies.

I knew coming up with a cookie that looked like the sorting hat wouldn’t be easy. After all, it needed to be a dark color, 3-dimensional, and have that trademark scowl etched into the folds. Dark chocolate butter cookies. I figured I could work with the dough to shape the hats. My first few attempts yielded several helpful comments from my kids, most along the lines of–”Cool. Are those supposed to be dragon droppings or something, mom?” But hey, it’s the final Harry Potter movie so if it takes a little more time to come up with the perfect sorting hat cookie, that’s okay.

I did come up with a decent looking sorting hat cookie, trouble is, of my cookie batch, only 5 turned out, the rest, well, spread a bit to the point

Photo credit: Wizardinglife.com

that my kids’ comments were pretty accurate. But that’s where a little creativity comes into play. I turned my less impressive cookies into the base of a much simpler, easier version of sorting hats–inverted ice cream cones with melted chocolate chip faces. I’m including detailed instructions if you want to attempt the sorting hat chocolate butter cookies, but if you’re looking for something you can pull together in minutes (or to use your cookies that didn’t turn out) I’ve got those directions first. My kids were more than happy to eat any of my attempts at cookies–you can’t go wrong with Harry Potter-themed sweets.

Check back in Wednesday for a Polyjuice Potion recipe and Friday for a roundup of Harry Potter ideas to cook up.

Ice cream cone 'sorting hat' cookies

Fast & easy sorting hat cookies

Yield: 4 large cookies

Prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

4 sugar ice cream cones

4 scoops ice cream

1/4 cups chocolate chips, melted

4 chocolate wafer cookies

Directions

1. Heat the chocolate chips in a glass dish in the microwave until melted. (At high power, my microwave takes 1 minute.)
2. Invert the ice cream cones and use a table knife to draw the sorting hat ‘face’ onto the cones. I also dipped the tip of the cone into the chocolate.
3. Allow to harden–if you use chocolate candy coating this can take minutes, chocolate chips will take around half an hour.
4. Place the ice cream carefully into each cone and top with the chocolate wafer cookie. (This is where you can use your chocolate butter sorting hat cookies that didn’t quite turn out:)
5. Service right away!

Chocolate butter sorting hat cookies

*Adapted from King Arthur Flour’s Baking Companion Cookbook

Yield: Depends;)

Prep time: 30 minutes + baking, fridge time

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

Use two circle sizes for the hat

3/4 cocoa (*see note below)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 butter at room temperature (not margarine)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 Tablespoon water

1/2 Tablespoon honey or agave

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Directions

1. Cream the butter and sugars together. I wanted an intense, chewy chocolate cookie that’s why I went with brown sugar in
   

   Notice the thickness of the cookie and how to cut the circle

   stead of just granulated.

2. Add the egg, water, honey and extract (if using) to the butter mixture. Blend well.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. *Note: to get the dark color try using Hershey’s special dark cocoa at the grocers or order dark cocoa powder from King Arthur Flour.
4. Gently mix the dry ingredients gently into the batter just until incorporated.
5. Place dough on waxed paper, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or until solid.
6. Here’s the tricky part–putting the cookies together: preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line your cookie pans with parchment paper.
7. Working with 1/3 of the dough at a time and leaving the rest refrigerated, roll out the dough, using flour and a rolling pin, to 1/4″ thick. The object here is to keep the cookies AS COLD AS POSSIBLE so they don’t melt much when you cook them.
   

   Roll the dough inward at least 3 times and make it as high as possible (it'll shrink)

8. Use a small circle as the base of the hat (I used a spice container lid) and a larger circle (cups work well) to construct the hat.
9. Place the small circle on the cookie sheet. With the larger circle, make one cut toward the center (pictured). Roll this part inward so that it resembles a cone or Christmas tree. Place it on the smaller base. Don’t worry about pressing it in, as it cooks, it will come together.
10. With a spoon, make the sorting hat face. Place the cookies into the fridge for 15 minutes (or more) before baking.
11. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes and then check on them. I indented the face again part way through cooking. Bake another 3-5 minutes until just done.
12. Remove the pan and allow the cookies to cool ON the pan. Again, you can use the spoon to shape the face; the cookies will harden as they cool.

Shaped sorting hats ready to go into the oven

Early attempts at sorting hats that fell flat--but still tasted good!