These Cookie Dough Cups are made by loading edible cookie dough in a miniature muffin tin and covering it with melted chocolate — it ends up kind of like a Reese’s® Peanut Butter Cup but with cookie dough instead of PB!
After you’ve fallen in love with these Cookie Dough Cups, try some of our other favorite treats — cereal S’mores Bars, Energy Bites, or these Muddy Buddies.
Cookie Dough Cups
My entire family loves Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but given the choice, they’d pick eating cookie dough over Reese’s any day. So I thought, why not combine two of their favorites? And now I’m definitely the favorite in the family for making these. 😉
Cookie Dough Cups are delicious! A rich center of soft, chewy, flavorful cookie dough encased in a rich coating of chocolate? Yes, yes, and yes!
Plus, you don’t need any special candy-making equipment. For these sweet little cups, you’ll just need a miniature muffin tin and liners!
Tools Needed
As mentioned, there’s no special candy-making equipment required, but here’s what you will need:
- Mini muffin pan
- Miniature muffin liners
Let’s talk edible cookie dough
The center of these Cookie Dough Cups is edible cookie dough. What do I mean by edible? Well, technically, regular cookie dough (like you’d get in chewy chocolate chip cookies) is not food safe to eat.
There are food safety concerns revolving around both the flour and uncooked eggs. So the edible cookie dough portion of these cookie dough cups is specially formulated to be safe while also tasting just like regular cookie dough. There are no eggs in this recipe and we heat treat the flour to ensure everything is up to safety standard for consumption.
What is heat treating flour?
A lot of people are surprised to find flour is responsible for sickness in unbaked cookie dough. While flour doesn’t look like raw food, it actually is. It may contain germs that can cause food poisoning. When you bake with flour, the oven’s heat accomplishes that sterilization process, but uncooked foods don’t get heat-treated flour. So, we actually cook (heat treat) the flour before using it, to ensure we kill any potential bacteria. There are three options for heat-treating your flour.
- Purchase flour that has already been heat-treated.
- Heat treat it in the microwave.
- Heat treat it in the oven.
I outline the full extent of these methods for heat-treating the flour in the recipe card, but here are a few quick tips when heating treating flour:
- Let the flour cool completely before using it in the recipe; you can speed up the process by placing the tray in the fridge or freezer.
- Break up any clumps of flour and discard any discolored sections — this part of the flour is burnt and will give the cookie dough an “off” flavor.
- Heat treat more flour than you’ll need to compensate for any flour that gets burned in the process of heat treating.
- Heat-treated flour should look just like regular flour (light, fluffy, and white).
Let’s chat chocolate
- You can use any type of chocolate you like for these cookie dough cups — milk, semi-sweet, dark, or white chocolate chips. Our favorite is milk chocolate, but I have to admit, the Cookie Dough Cups end up very sweet. To limit sweetness, try semi-sweet or dark.
- For best flavor and melting results, use good-quality chocolate chips. Cookie Dough Cups aren’t nearly as tasty with cheaper chocolate.
- Microwave the chocolate chips in sturdy, heat–safe bowls instead of using plastic or melamine.
- To avoid burned chocolate, microwave the chips for 30 seconds at a time, and stir them for at least 20-25 seconds between each microwave burst. Remember, the chocolate is still melting even after it has been removed from the microwave.
Cookie Dough Cup Tips
- Store in the fridge. Especially on a warm day, Cookie Dough Cups have a tendency to get melty. I like keeping them in the fridge until the last minute before serving. These taste best right out of the fridge!
- Add some sea salt. If you love salty-sweet treats, top these cups with a light sprinkle of Maldon sea salt flakes — yum!
- Tap the muffin tin on the counter. After adding chocolate to the base and then to top the cookie dough, give the muffin tin a few hard taps to help even out the chocolate and get it in one layer.
- Don’t forget the liners. These cookie dough cups won’t come out very well without liners!
Leftover Edible Cookie Dough
You’ll end up with a bit of extra cookie dough after filling up 24 chocolate cups. You can certainly use it all up in more cookie dough cups (just melt more chocolate), but we love having extra to snack on while rolling or we like to have it on hand to enjoy in other ways. Here’s how we like to use leftover cookie dough:
- As a fun treat/snack
- Rolled into small balls and used as a chocolate chip cupcake or chocolate cake garnish
- As a yogurt bowl or acai bowl topping
- Rolled into small balls and added to a snack mix or this chocolate popcorn
- Sandwiched in the center of these Homemade Oreos
More Chocolate Desserts
- Brownie Oreo Ice Cream Bars with a brownie base
- Icebox Cake with Oreo cookies
- Chocolate Muffins bakery style with chocolate chips
- Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats with Cocoa Krispies cereal
- Hot Chocolate Snack Mix with white chocolate-covered marshmallows
Cookie Dough Cups
Equipment
- Mini muffin pan with liners
- Small bowl microwave-safe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1/3 cup dark brown sugar firmly packed
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon whole milk or heavy cream
- 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
- 2 cups chocolate chips divided, see note 1
- 1-1/2 teaspoons coconut oil divided
Instructions
- Heat treat flour in the microwave or oven (see note 2). Let flour cool to room temperature before using. The flour should be light, white, and fluffy. If it’s off colored or clumpy, it’s burnt and shouldn’t be used. Spoon the flour into a 3/4 measuring cup and level the top with a table knife. Set aside.
- Melt butter and set it aside to cool back to room temperature—hot butter will melt the sugar and cause greasy or grainy cookie dough. In a medium bowl, whisk together butter and both sugars until the mixture is fully integrated and smooth.
- Add in salt, vanilla, and milk or cream and stir until integrated. Stir in the flour and mini chocolate chips. Mix until combined and smooth. Place the cookie dough in the fridge for 10 minutes.
- Roll the cookie dough into small balls (1/2 tablespoon). Slightly flatten the balls into thick disks. You should get about 36 cookie dough disks, but you only need 24 for this recipe, so either eat the rest or enjoy them as a topping for another treat.
- Line a miniature muffin pan; we need a total of 24 cups lined.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt 3/4 cup chocolate chips with 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil (see note 3). Spoon an even amount of the melted chocolate mixture into the bottom of each muffin cup, using it all among the 24 cups. Gently tap the miniature muffin pan a few times to get the chocolate in an even layer on the bottom.
- Place the disks of cookie dough on top of the melted chocolate mixture in each cup. In the same bowl melt another 1-1/4 cup of chocolate and 1 teaspoon coconut oil.
- Pour an even amount of chocolate over each of the cookie dough cups. Be sure that all the chocolate is used, and fill the cookie dough cups most of the way to the top. Gently tap the muffin pan on the counter a few times to get an even chocolate coating.
- Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or until set, then enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’m Chelseas’ sister and I first tried these cookie dough cups at her house and legit they were life changing. I make her edible cookie dough all the time and now when I have extras I make them into these cookie dough cups. They’re always a hit.