Chocolate Crinkle Cookies Recipe (2024)

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These classic cookies are soft and fudgy, with a deep chocolaty richness and a bitter espresso backbone that stands up to the powdered-sugar coating.

Carrie Vasios Mullins

Carrie Vasios Mullins is the former national editor at Serious Eats, with a focus on all things sweet.

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and

Daniel Gritzer

Senior Culinary Director

Daniel joined the Serious Eats culinary team in 2014 and writes recipes, equipment reviews, articles on cooking techniques. Prior to that he was a food editor at Food & Wine magazine, and the staff writer for Time Out New York's restaurant and bars section.

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Why It Works

A heavy coating of powdered sugar gives these cookies a distinct cracked, black-and-white appearance.
Adding espresso powder to the dough balances the sweetness of the powdered sugar coating.
Resting the dough for an hour allows the flour to fully hydrate, improving texture.

The list of foods I hate is incredibly short. Despite how few items are on it, though, my disdain for them is nearly endless. Right at the top of that list: fudge. I will never understand what the appeal is. It masquerades as chocolate, but any true chocolate lover knows it for what it really is—a soulless, treacly pablum that offers nothing but unchecked sweetness. Fudge is the Muzak of sweets.

"Fudgy," though, as an adjective, is something else entirely. Ilovefudgy things. They're soft, verging on gooey; indulgent and, yes, chocolaty. These classic crinkle cookies, contributed by Carrie Vasios Mullins, are a prime example. Made with unsweetened cocoa powder and instant espresso powder, they have a deep chocolaty richness with a slightly bitter backbone that stands up to the powdered-sugar coating. As Carrie notes:

Most recipes for crinkle cookies rely on a 1:1 ratio between flour and sugar, yet the cookies aren't overly sweet. Unsweetened cocoa powder adds a deep chocolate flavor which I enhance with instant espresso powder.

Inside, they're moist and chewy, delivering that perfect fudgy consistency, while the exteriors are crisp and covered in those telltale crackles, signaling the textural shift between brittle crust and tender core. It's like the geology of Earth itself, rendered in miniature, chocolate-cookie form.

Perhaps you feel the same as I do about how terrible fudge is, or perhaps you don't. No matter. Regarding how good these fudgy cookies are, I'm confident we'll be in agreement.

This recipe was written and developed by Carrie Vasios Mullins, while the headnote was written by Daniel Gritzer.

March 2012

Recipe Details