Easy chocolate crinkle cookies
Chocolate Crinkle cookies are everything you could want in a holiday cookie – They’re deliciously fudgey and chocolatey on the inside, a little sweet and crispy on the outside, as well as festive and pretty!
This easy chocolate crinkle cookie recipe is one of my favourites to make at Christmas time.
As well as being really festive and pretty, chocolate crinkle cookies are deliciously fudgey and chocolaty on the inside and a little sweet and crispy on the outside. They’re almost brownie like, but in the form of a cookie. They’re everything you could want in a Christmas cookie so if you’re planning to make any cookies or biscuits this festive season, be sure to make these!
While these are a delicious, Christmas cookie and make great gifts for friends and family, they can of course be eaten all year round. They’re not just for the holiday season!
How can kids help make these easy chocolate crinkle cookies?
This recipe for chocolate crinkle cookies is really easy, so is a great one for getting kids busy baking at Christmas time.
Your kids will love getting to make the cookie batter – measuring out all the ingredients and mixing them together.
Once you’ve made the cookie dough, they’ll get to roll them out and cover them in icing. This can be a little messy, so great if your kids like getting their hands messy. If yours don’t like messy hands, they can roll them in the icing and pop them on your baking sheet instead (this is what mine do).
My kids also loved watching the crinkle cookies melt and crack and make the beautiful crinkle cookie shape in the oven.
What makes the cookies crinkle?
The ‘crinkle’ in these chocolate crinkle cookies comes from the icing sugar coating. As the cookies bake in the oven they spread and cracks develop in the coating giving them their disctinct appearance.
Advice for making the chocolate crinkle cookies
The dough is really wet – far wetter and softer than any cookie I’ve made before so it’s important to let it chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight. This will harden up the cookie batter to make it easier to roll. It also stops them melting and spreading too much in the oven.
Chilling the dough before you bake them, also means they keep a nice shape in the oven, and don’t spread too much.
can you make crinkle cookies ahead of time?
Yes. The baked crinkle cookies will keep in an air tight container for a few days.
You can also freeze the cookies. Once you’ve baked them leave them to cool and wrap them carefully in clingfilm/glad wrap before putting them in a freezer bag.
You can also freeze the cookie dough for a few months before you bake them. Simply freeze the rolled balls of dough (before you’ve coated them in sugar). Chill or freeze them individually on a baking tray, before putting them in a seeled freezer bag. When you’re ready to bake them, leave them out of the freezer for an hour or so to thaw before rolling them in icing sugar and baking them in the oven.
Other festive cookies
If you love these crinkle cookies, you’ll also love our easy chocolate biscuits or some of our other fabulous festive bakes:
Christmas sugar cookies
Christmas reindeer brownies
Christmas tree brownies
Snickerdoodles
Mince pies
Melted snowman biscuits
Christmas tree brownies
Easy gingerbread recipe for kids
Lebkuchen
Gingerbread house
Useful equipment
You might need the following baking tools/gadgets to make these chocolate crinkle cookies
Digital scales
Mixing bowl
Measuring cups
Baking tray
Wire rack
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Difficulty: Easy
Time: 30 minutes plus 4 hours+ chilling plus 10 minutes baking
Serves: 20+ cookies
Ingredients
60g (½ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
200g (1 cup) white granulated sugar
60ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
130g (1 cup) Plain/all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
For the coating
¼ cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
How to make chocolate crinkle cookies
Mix the cocoa, sugar and oil together
Get your kids to measure the cocoa powder (60g), sugar (200g) and vegetable oil (60ml) out and pour them into a large bowl or mixer.
Beat it all together using a hand held whisk or the k-paddle of your free-standing mixer until it is well incorporated.
Add the eggs and vanilla
Break the eggs into a small bowl, one at a time. Add them to your mixer and beat them into the mix. Add the vanilla extract (2 tsp) and give it a final mix.
Weigh the dry ingredients
In a separate bowl, get your kids to weigh the flour (130g) and the baking powder (1 tsp).
Add the flour to the wet cookie mix. Mix it together until you have a nice dough.
Don’t over mix it, just do it enough so all the flour is incorporated.
Cover the bowl with cling film and put it in the fridge over night (or at least 4 hours). The dough is supposed to be wet – chilling it will help it harden so you can form the cookie balls.
Bake the chocolate crinkle cookies
Preheat your oven to 180C / 170C Fan /350F and line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking paper (parchment paper).
Measure the icing sugar (roughly ¼ cup) into a small bowl or plate
Use a teaspoon to get a bit of dough from your bowl. Get your kids to help roll it in to balls then roll in the icing sugar until the ball is fully covered, (be generous – we covered a few of them more than once). We also found because the dough is so sticky it was easier to coat them a bit in icing sugar first, then roll them into a ball, then roll them in the icing sugar again.
Pop them on your baking trays leaving room for them to spread a little.
Bake the crinkle cookies in the oven for around 10 minutes. They’re ready when they have spread a little, and formed the nice crinkle shape. They’ll still be a little bit soft when come out of the oven but will harden as they’re cool.
Leave them to cool on their baking trays for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Serve and enjoy!
Chocolate crinkle cookies
Ingredients
- 60 g (½ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 200 g (1 cup) white granulated sugar
- 60 ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 130 g (1 cup) Plain/all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
For the coating
- ¼ cup icing sugar confectioner's sugar
Instructions
Mix the cocoa, sugar and oil together
- Measure the cocoa powder, sugar and vegetable oil out and pour them into a large bowl or mixer.
- Beat it all together using a hand held whisk or the k paddle of your free-standing mixer until it is well incorporated.
Add the eggs and vanilla
- Break the eggs into a small bowl, one at a time. Add them to your mixer and beat them into the mix. Add the vanilla extract (2 tsp) and give it a final mix.
Weigh the dry ingredients
- In a separate bowl, weigh the flour and the baking powder.
- Add the flour to the wet cookie mix. Mix it together until you have a nice dough. Don't over mix it, just do it enough so all the flour is incorporated.
- Cover the bowl with cling film and put it in the fridge over night (or at least 4 hours). The dough is supposed to be wet – chilling it will help it harden so you can form the cookie balls.
Bake the crinkle cookies
- Preheat your oven to 180C / 170C Fan /350F and line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking paper (parchment paper).
- Measure the icing sugar into a small bowl.
- Use a teaspoon to get a bit of dough from your bowl. Roll it in to balls then roll in the icing sugar until the ball is fully covered. The dough can be quite sticky, so it might be easier to coat it in a little icing sugar before rolling them into balls, then give them a second coating in the icing sugar.
- Pop them on your baking trays leaving room for them to spread a little.
- Bake the crinkle cookies in the oven for around 10 minutes. They're ready when they have spread a little, and formed the nice crinkle shape. They'll still be a little bit soft when come out of the oven but will harden as they're cool.
- Leave them to cool on their baking trays for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy!
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Similar recipes
If you liked these crinkle cookies you’ll love our Christmas reindeer brownies and our other fun festive bakes or our favourite easy bakes for kids.
This recipe was first published in December 2018 and republished with new images in December 2023.
The post Easy chocolate crinkle cookies appeared first on Cooking with my kids.