First, sift together the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl until combined. Set aside.

Add the butter and ½ cup sugar to a larger mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Then, add in the flax egg and vanilla bean paste and mix together.

Next, add in the sifted dry ingredients. Then, mix together until a smooth and thick cookie dough forms. The dough will be very sticky and almost fudge like- this is okay!

Add the bowl of cookie dough to the fridge, cover, and let chill for 1 hour.

Cover a baking sheet in parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350F. Next, remove the dough from the fridge and use a medium cookie scoop to form 9-10 cookie dough balls about 40-45 grams in size. Roll into balls between your palms and then roll each cookie dough ball in a small bowl containing the remaining 2 tablespoon of sugar.

Place the chocolate sugar cookie dough balls onto the baking sheet. If you want flatter cookies, you can lightly press the dough down with your palm as I did, but this is optional. Make sure that each cookie is kept about 2 inches apart since they will spread slightly while baking.

Bake for 5-6 minutes, remove the tray, and gently tap it on the counter to help cookies spread and deflate (optional). Add the tray bake to the oven and cook an additional 4-6 minutes until cookies have fully cooked edges and barely cooked centers. The cookies will continue baking after they are removed from the oven so the centers should still be soft, but not glossy or raw, when they are removed from the oven.

Remove the cookie tray from the oven and immediately tap the tray on the counter again to produce a more “wrinkly” cookie. Then, let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. The cookies will be soft and puffy out of the oven and will naturally deflate a little while cooling.

Move the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely and then serve. Enjoy!