Hot Chocolate Cookies

Warm and cozy chocolate cookies, filled with puddles of dark chocolate and gooey marshmallows.

I don’t know whether to blame the frigid weather, the many inches of snow covering our yard, or the baby growing in my belly, but I have been VERY into hot chocolate this winter. I’ve been making it plain from scratch, making Martin’s abuela’s avena, and keeping a box of Trader Joe’s Hot Cocoa packets in my pantry for grabbing in a pinch. I just can’t get enough.

So of course my hot cocoa cravings have spilled over into my recipe development where these cookies were created. I used my brownie-like fudgy chocolate cookie base from my Chocolate Orange Cookies and adapted it slightly to create these ooey, gooey hot chocolate cookies, filled with puddles of dark chocolate and miniature marshmallows to keep you warm all winter long.

how to make hot chocolate cookies

This recipe is very simple and needs minimal chilling time—both wins in my book. We start by melting chocolate and butter over a double boiler. While the chocolate is melting, whisk together your dry ingredients and set them aside. Meanwhile, combine sugar, eggs, and extracts in the bowl of a mixer and whip them for about 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy and a thick ribbon forms when you pull the whisk out of the bowl. Then we incorporate the dry ingredients, followed by the melted chocolate and butter, and finally fold in the chopped chocolate and mini marshmallows.

This batter closely resembles brownie batter, so it will be too loose to scoop right away. Pop the bowl in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes and then scoop cookies and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on cookie size, until the edges are set and the tops are dry. Let them cool slightly on the pan before digging in!

what you need to make hot chocolate cookies

• Chocolate. Use high-quality dark chocolate for this recipe because it’s really the star. I like the 72% baking bars from Trader Joe’s. You’ll need 12 oz for melting and another 4 oz chopped for stirring into the batter.

• Butter. I always bake with unsalted butter, as the salt amounts varies from brand to brand. If you choose to use salted butter, cut the amount of salt in the recipe in half.

• Sugar. Plain, white granulated sugar for this recipe helps our cookies spread just a bit and gives us that crunchy, crackly exterior.

• Eggs. Use large eggs, which weigh about 50 grams each. The high egg quantity in this recipe makes the cookies extra fudgy.

• Vanilla Extract. I like the subtle rounded-out flavor that dark vanilla extract gives to the cookies.

• Cacao Extract. For Christmas, my aunt brought me cacao, cinnamon, and coffee extracts from Tanzania and I was looking for ways to incorporate them in my baking. If you don’t have an aunt who brings you African cacao extracts, just leave it out—no big deal.

• Flour. All purpose flour is used in this recipe. Be sure to weigh your flour for the most accurate results.

• Salt. I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt in all of my baking and cooking. If you are using Morton’s, cut the salt amount in half as they are much smaller grains.

• Baking Powder. Baking powder does most of the leavening in this recipe and keeps our cookies from becoming puddles when baking.

• Baking Soda. The baking soda contributes a little to the leavening in this recipe, but it’s big job is to counteract the acid in the chocolate here.

• Cocoa Powder. Good, dark cocoa powder provides richness to our cookie.

• Miniature Marshmallows. You can’t have hot chocolate without marshmallows. Grab your favorite mini marshmallows for mixing in.

Yield 24 large cookies, or about 40 small cookies

Author Anna Ramiz

Prep time

30 Min

Cook time

12 Min

Inactive time

30 Min

Total time

1 H & 12 M

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Hot Chocolate Cookies

Warm and cozy chocolate cookies, filled with puddles of dark chocolate and gooey marshmallows.

Ingredients

• 12 oz dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cacao extract, optional
• 2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 oz dark chocolate, chopped
• 90 g (about 1 cup) miniature marshmallows

Instructions

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave or over a double boiler. Set aside and let cool to room temperature.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip sugar with eggs and vanilla (and cacao extract, if using) on medium-high speed until the mixture is lightened in color and slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. (You should be able to pull the whisk out of the bowl and it should leave a ribbon-like mark in the mixture.)
4. Switch to the paddle attachment on the mixer and gradually add dry ingredients, scraping down the sides to make sure that no dry streaks remain.
5. With the mixer on low speed, stream in the chocolate mixture and mix until completely combined and batter is all one color. Fold in the chopped chocolate and miniature marshmallows. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using either a medium or large cookie scoop, portion cookies onto tray, leaving space between them because they will spread a little.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes for smaller cookies, 10-12 minutes for larger cookies. Cookies are done when the edges are set and the tops are dry to the touch. Let cookies cool at least 5 minutes on the pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

Notes

If you don't have cacao extract, just omit it.

The longer you chill the dough, the more it sets up and the less your final cookies will spread. If I let the dough chill for longer than an hour, I like to let the cookies rest for a bit at room temperature before baking so that they still have a little spread.

Similar Recipes

Chocolate Orange Cookies

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Chai Snickerdoodles

Warm and cozy homemade chai spice blend and soft and chewy snickerdoodles are a match made in heaven. This simple recipe makes the perfect cookies with crispy edges and pillowy centers.

I’ve been a little quiet on the blog for the past few weeks, but not to worry—I’ve still been cranking out recipes and sharing them with you like a mad woman. In case you missed it, at the beginning of the month, I launched Pastry School 101—a weekly newsletter teaching you creative baking recipes and foundational pastry skills. Each month we will deep dive into technique or ingredient and I’ll break down the science behind the process, give step by step instructions, and lots of tips and tricks for pastry mastery. There will also be two bonus recipes each month that incorporate the featured monthly skill/ingredient and there are places within the publication for where readers can comment/ask questions/chat about each recipe or post. This month, we took a little at whipping eggs (both whites and yolks) made olive oil chocolate mousse, and classic tiramisu, and had a blast. If you aren’t already in our little community, I’d love for you to join us!

But now I’m back and I’ve got cookies for you!

This holiday season, my sister was looking for a winning recipe to bring to her annual Christmas Cookie Party. We were chatting about what kind of cookie she could make and the idea of a spiced chai cookie came to mind. I didn’t have time to test a whole new recipe and get it to her before the party, so I told her to make the chai spice blend from my dirty chai banana bread recipe and make my hawaij snickerdoodles subbing the chai spice in place of the hawaij. My sister reported back that they were winners.

We decided to make another batch together over our Christmas holiday they really were perfect. 100%. No notes. So now I’m sharing them with you.

homemade chai spice blend

Making a batch of chai spice blend is as simple as stirring together a few spices and keeping it in a jar in your spice cabinet. We’re incorporating ground black tea (from tea bags), a hefty amount of cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger, and lots of supporting characters like cloves and black pepper. This recipe will make more than you need for the cookies so make a batch of banana bread of keep it in pantry for stirring into coffee.

soft and chewy snickerdoodles

I had a reader once tell me that molasses is never used in snickerdoodle recipes, but I love it and I don’t care what anyone thinks. I love love love using molasses in my spiced snickerdoodle recipes for two main reasons:

1. Molasses is made by boiling, reducing, and concentrating the juice extracted from sugar cane. We know that cooking sugar creates caramelization so when molasses is incorporated into recipes it not only adds sweetness, but a deep caramelized flavor perfect for pairing with warm spices.

2. Molasses is a type of invert syrup, a scientific balance of fructose and glucose, that in baking, adds sweetness and liquid at the same time. Adding an invert syrup like molasses to a recipe will greatly increase moisture, creating a softer, chewier cookie and extending shelf life.

Otherwise, this recipe is very straight forward. Melted browned butter is mixed with sugars, followed by eggs, vanilla, and molasses, and then dry ingredients are folded in. The batter does need a short chill time (about 30 minutes) in order to hold its shape during baking, and then, like any good snickerdoodle, we roll it in sugar.

One last recipe tip: I’ve made this recipe using a stand mixer, a hand mixer, and just a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. I’ve found that though it may take a little more elbow greaser, the wooden spoon/spatula mixing method yielded the thickest, softest cookie.

Yield 30-32 cookies

Author Anna Ramiz

Prep time

15 Min

Cook time

8 Min

Inactive time

30 Min

Total time

53 Min

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Chai Snickerdoodles

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Warm and cozy homemade chai spice blend and soft and chewy snickerdoodles are a match made in heaven. This simple recipe makes the perfect cookies with crispy edges and pillowy centers.

IngredientsUSMetric

for the chai spice blend

• 3 bags ground black tea
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground all spice
• 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

for the cookie dough

• 2 cups (240 g) all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 1/2 tsp chai spice, above
• 1/2 c up (113 g) unsalted butter
• 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup (56 g) brown sugar
• 1/3 cup (43 g) coconut oil, melted
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

for the rolling sugar

• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar
• 1 tsp chai spice, above

Instructions

1. To make the chai spice blend: combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth and well-combined. Transfer to an air tight container to store.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and chai spice.
3. Place butter in a small saucepan and set it over medium heat. Cook for 6-7 minutes, swirling occasionally until butter is nutty and fragrant with little brown flecks on the bottom. Transfer it to another large bowl and let cool slightly.
4. Add the sugar and brown sugar to the bowl with the butter and whisk until wet and sandy. Stream in the coconut oil, followed by the egg, molasses, and vanilla. Whisk vigorously until the mixture is smooth and homogenous.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until all of the flour is mixed in and no dry streaks remain. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
6. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375° F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
7. Stir together sugar, demerara sugar, and chai spice in a small bowl.
8. Using a two tsp sized cookie scoop, scoop dough into balls. Roll each ball in the chai sugar and place 1-2” apart on the baking sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes, just until the edges are lightly golden and the tops of the cookies are dry. Let cool for 5 minutes on the pan before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes

The chai spice blend will yield more than is needed for this recipe. Keep the rest in a sealed jar in your pantry and use it to make Dirty Chai Banana Bread or stir into coffee.

Similar Recipes

Dirty Chai Banana Bread

Citrus, Earl Grey, and Caramelized White Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Hawaij Snickerdoodles

Did you make this recipe?

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Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies with Hazelnuts and Espresso

These chewy butterscotch oatmeal cookies are filled with toasted hazelnuts and strong espresso. A quick and easy recipe, they make great freezer cookies--perfect for baking off at a moment's notice.

Us recipe developers work weird food schedules. For the blog, I try to create and plan content a month ahead, but for client work, it’s often farther in advance. This is how I found myself making Thanksgiving dinner at the end of September this year. I had a client project for a full Thanksgiving feast—turkey, stuffing, mac and cheese…the works, due at the beginning of October. For the weeks leading up to the shoot, I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with grocery stores trying to locate a turkey (fun fact, most grocery stores won’t get turkeys in stock until “closer to the holiday”, though they won’t tell you when exactly that will be and lots of meat managers are really not huge fans of people calling and asking about them). After finally securing myself an out-of-season turkey, I began to work on my full Thanksgiving dinner, a project that would leave me with somewhere close to a million pounds of leftovers that I really didn’t want.

So we threw a party. We celebrated Thanksgiving in early October with a group of friends who brought bonus sides and desserts pot-luck style. It was the first party we’ve hosted since moving to Minnesota and it was such a fun night, though I am officially turkey-ed out for the year. I’ll be eating spicy noodles or something completely different this year on actual Thanksgiving and I’ll be giving thanks for not having to cook a turkey twice in two months.

oatmeal cookies with butterscotch, hazelnuts, and espresso

I had this flavor idea swimming around in my head for a few weeks and decided to make a batch to go with our Thanksgiving party food so I could test them out on a group and they were a real hit. Think of them as classic oatmeal cookies with a bit of a grown-up twist.

I have three nonnegotiables when it comes to oatmeal cookies: 1) they should have crunchy edges 2) they should have soft, pillowy middles and 3) they should have a deep brown sugar flavor. These cookies hit all three and more.

I love steeping flavors into the butter for my cookies so this time we added instant espresso to our melted butter as the base of flavor. It’s then mixed with lots of brown sugar and sugar, eggs, vanilla, and dry ingredients (flour, oats, leavening agents, and salt). So easy. A bunch of toasted hazelnuts and butterscotch chips round it out and then they are chilled slightly before baking. Side note: this cookie dough smells AMAZING. My whole kitchen smelled like a tiny little coffee shop or the smell of the hazelnut coffee from Panera Bread.

When baking these cookies, take extra care not to over-bake so you don’t lose your soft, pillowy centers. I found that 8 minutes, tapping the tray on the counter, and then another 2-3 minutes worked perfectly in my oven. The centers will look underdone, but let the cookies cool completely on the pan and they will set up. Like most cookie recipes, this cookie dough freezes beautifully so that you can bake some off and have warm oatmeal cookies within 15 minutes.

Yield

22-24 cookies

Author

Anna Ramiz

Prep time

15 Min

Cook time

10 Min

Inactive time

30 Min

Total time

55 Min

Print

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Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies with Hazelnuts and Espresso

These chewy butterscotch oatmeal cookies are filled with toasted hazelnuts and strong espresso. A quick and easy recipe, they make great freezer cookies--perfect for baking off at a moment's notice.

Ingredients US Metric Both

• 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp instant espresso
• 3 cups (270 g) rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cup (190 g) all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 cup (200 g) brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 11 oz butterscotch chips
• 1 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Instructions

1. Place butter and espresso in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until butter is melted and espresso is dissolved. Set aside to cool.
2. In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together brown sugar, granulated sugar, and espresso butter until smooth and homogenized and the mixture is room temperature.
4. Add the eggs and vanilla and continue mixing for 1-2 minutes, until very smooth and completely combined.
5. Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed just until combined, followed by the butterscotch chips and the toasted hazelnuts.
6. Using a large cookie scoop, scoop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill for at least 30 minutes, preferably overnight.
7. When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350° F. Place cookies on another parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2” space between cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centers are just set. Sprinkle with flaky salt and let cool on the pan.

Similar Recipes

Brown Sugar Cookies with Rosemary Butter Glaze

Hawaij Snickerdoodles

White Chocolate Cherry Cookies with Rose Butter

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Tag @gatheredatmytable on instagram and hashtag it #gatheredatmytable