Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

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Soft, thick, and fudgy chocolate crinkle cookies filled with milk chocolate chips and coated in powdered sugar.

Add some other favorite cookies to your holiday cookie platter such as these oatmeal cookies, Mexican wedding cookies, chewy chocolate chip cookies.

As much as I love Thanksgiving (and that’s a lot), Christmas baking is always my favorite. I bake cookies with the boys all December long and it’s one of our favorite things to do.

I am so excited for the line-up of cookies and Christmas treats coming your way over the next couple of weeks — there’s a lot I’ll be sharing! 🙂 Today we’re starting with one of our favorites — these chocolate crinkle cookies are soft, chewy, fudgy, and practically melt in your mouth. 

How to make chocolate crinkle cookies

The descriptions below correlate with the photo collage above 🙂

1. Cream together room temperature butter and sugars until light and creamy
2. Beat in the sour cream (I know, sounds weird, but it’s the secret ingredient to make these cookies ultra fudgy!), eggs, and vanilla extract
3. Add dry ingredients and chocolate chips in another bowl. 
4. Stir to combine
5. Add dry to wet and mix until JUST combined. It will be extremely thick and quite wet — these cookies have to chill before rolling into balls.
6. Use a tablespoon measuring spoon to measure out perfect cookie dough balls
7. Roll the ball into powdered sugar
8. Place on a baking sheet and bake!

Tips for chocolate crinkle cookies

• Spoon and level your flour or weigh it to get a more accurate measurement of flour. Too much flour makes these cookies overly cakey
• Chill the dough: this helps solidify the butter and concentrate the flavors. It also makes rolling these into ball easier — it will be practically impossible to roll balls of dough without chilling
• Use a tablespoon measuring spoon to measure cookie dough balls — this will ensure even sized cookies which is important for even baking.
• Bake on a silpat liner or parchment paper: This helps with a quick clean up, helps ensures the bottoms don’t burn, and helps the baking to be even throughout. (I’ve tested these chocolate crinkle cookies on both parchment paper and silpat liner; we preferred cookies baked on the silpat liner.)
• Use DUTCH PROCESS cocoa powder (more on this below)

Chocolate Crinkle Cookie Ingredients: 

• Butter: use unsalted, real butter. We like to use unsalted and then add salt so we can perfectly control the amount of salt in the cookies
• Sugar: white and light brown sugar
• Egg
• Sour Cream: the “secret” to soft and fudgy cookies
• Extracts: almond and vanilla extract; almond extract is optional, but it does add a nice hint of flavor
• Cocoa Powder: arguably the most important ingredient in these chocolate crinkle cookies! You want to make sure to use dutch process cocoa powder in these cookies. Regular cocoa powder will make these cookies dry and less flavorful. Here’s the exact cocoa powder I use (and highly recommend; affiliate)
• Flour, baking powder, and salt: test to make sure your baking powder is fresh!
• Chocolate chips: we love milk chocolate chips in these cookies, but use your favorite — semi-sweet, dark, or white would all work great

More cookie recipes:

• Thumbprint Cookies raspberry almond flavored
• Lemon Cookies with a lemon glaze
• Edible Cookie Dough reader favorite!
• Caramel Oatmeal Cookies rolo stuffed oatmeal cookies
• Flourless Monster Cookies peanut butter oat cookies

Print

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

9 mins

Chilling Time

1 hr

Total Time

1 hr 29 mins

 

Soft, thick, and fudgy chocolate crinkle cookies filled with milk chocolate chips and coated in powdered sugar.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chocolate crinkle cookies

Servings: 45 cookies

Calories: 79 kcal

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup (150g) white sugar
• 1/2 cup (88g) packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (94g) FULL FAT sour cream, at room temperature
• 1 small drop almond extract, optional
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-3/4 cups (219g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (56g) unsweetened DUTCH PROCESS cocoa powder Note 1
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (165g) milk chocolate chips (or use semi-sweet or dark -- whichever you prefer)
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. WET INGREDIENTS: In a large bowl, cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy (the mixture should resemble peanut butter). Beat in egg, sour cream, almond extract, and vanilla extract.

2. DRY INGREDIENTS: In a separate bowl combine the flour, unsweetened dutch process cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Add in chocolate chips. Stir to combine.

3. COMBINE: Combine wet and dry and mix until JUST combined being careful to not overmix. Cover the dough and chill for at least 30 minutes and preferably 1 hour.

4. ROLL BALLS: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large tray with parchment paper or a silpat liner. Use a tablespoon measuring spoon to measure exact cookie dough balls (each ball should be 1 tablespoon of dough; you should get around 45 cookies). Roll in powdered sugar and place on prepared sheet pan; no more than 9 cookies per pan. Place in the fridge for another 10 minutes.

5. BAKE: bake at 350 for 7-10 minutes or until set (just until the top is no longer "glossy"). Be careful to not overbake. A soft, very slightly underbaked cookie is the best for a delicious fudgy texture! Once the cookies come out of the oven, let stand on cookie sheet for 5-7 minutes. Then dip again in bowl of powdered sugar. Transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

6. STORAGE: store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. Cookies best enjoyed with 2 days.

Recipe Notes

Note 1: Make sure to use dutch process cocoa powder in these cookies. Regular cocoa powder will make these cookies dry and less flavorful. Here's the exact cocoa powder I use (affiliate)