This surprising and sophisticated cookie gets its refined texture from cacao butter; the addition of pretty-in-pink ruby chocolate chips add a hint of fruity flavor.

Swapping out half of the butter for cacao butter gives this cookie a unique shortbread-like texture that’s unexpectedly delightful and surprisingly light, with a delicate white chocolate flavor. I bet you’ve never tasted a cookie quite like this before!

I’ve been thinking about making a cacao butter cookie for sometime now, but the question of execution has prevented me from actually doing it until now. A quick google search brought up Stella’s recipe, and since everything Stella does is rock solid, I figured, why reinvent the wheel? I made a few small changes, including using ruby chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate, but otherwise the recipe is pretty true to the original.

What surprised me most was the texture and crumb of these cookies. While they look like they’d be soft and chewy like a sugar cookie or chocolate chip cookie, they are surprisingly light and also somewhat sandy, not unlike a shortbread or sable cookie in that sense.

The flavor is rich and buttery, like a mild white chocolate without the cloying sweetness. And the ruby chocolate provides a hint of acidity that complements the cacao butter perfectly. Ruby chocolate is often described as fruity, which it is. But it’s not that it tastes like straight up berries, necessarily, rather the flavor is brighter and more tart than your typical one-note white chocolate. It’s a little bit hard to explain such a complex flavor in mere words, so you’ll just have to try it for yourself!

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