Chocolate Crinkle Cookies have a rich, fudgy center with a crisp powdered-sugar coating. They taste like hot chocolate in cookie form and disappear faster than I can plate them. These cookies are perfect any time of the year, but look especially festive served on a holiday cookie platter.
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Helpful Reader Review
“I tried these cookies 5 years ago, and they’re still one of my favorites! Thank you, Natasha, for such masterpiece recipes! I love your blog! 😍😘” – Dina ★★★★★
Easy Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
You know I love easy desserts with simple ingredients. This Chocolate Crinkle Cookies recipe is no exception, since there aren’t any fancy ingredients or techniques here. Mix, refrigerate, and scoop–done!
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are like a cross between fudgy Brownies and Chocolate Chip Cookies that are rolled in powdered sugar to form “crinkles” as they expand in the oven. Crinkle cookies are perfect for gifting, since they get better the next day, and they are so good, you’ll want to make a double batch!
Did You Know?
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies first premiered in Betty Crocker’s famous cookie cookbook, “Cooky Carnival”. Crocker recounts being served the cookies by home chef Helen Fredell and begging her for the recipe.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookie Ingredients
Check your pantry and fridge for all you need to make my delicious chocolate crinkle cookies. Be sure to measure correctly so the cookies expand and rise correctly.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – fluff the powder with a fork, then spoon it into the measuring cup to be sure you have the right amount of cocoa.
- Wet Ingredients – sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and Vanilla Extract
- Dry ingredients – Flour, baking powder, and salt
- Confectioner’s sugar – for rolling the dough and creating crinkles. For a more festive look, try swapping with holiday sprinkles (Halloween-themed sprinkles look great, too!) or colored sugar.
How to Make Crinkle Cookies
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are a blast to make because rolling the chocolatey dough and coating it in powdered sugar is good, messy fun, similar to making Russian Tea Cakes.
- Whisk the sugar, cocoa powder, oil, vanilla extract, and eggs together in a bowl.
- Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt) in a separate mixing bowl. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix well.
- Cover the dough and refrigerate for 3 hours or up to overnight. This is essential for making a rollable and rising dough.
- Roll – Preheat the oven to 350°F. Shape cookie dough into balls (a cookie scoop makes it easy to portion) and roll in powdered sugar (wet hands make it easier to handle).
- Bake – Space the cookies on a lined baking sheet, and then bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven to cool on the sheet. Once cookies are slightly cooled, move them to a wire rack to fully cool down.
Pro Tip:
Chocolate crinkle cookies come out of the oven soft, but the outside hardens as they cool. In fact, they continue to get crispy as they sit, but the inside stays fudgey.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are just as important as Sugar Cookies and Gingerbread Cookies on your holiday cookie tray, so place them next to my Christmas Snowball Cookies and Homemade Baklava for a decadent, well-rounded dessert table!
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil, (or canola, or light olive oil)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
Instructions
- Whisk – In a mixing bowl, combine granulated sugar, cocoa powder, oil, vanilla extract, and eggs. Whisk until the mixture is smooth.
- Mix – In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the cocoa mixture and stir to combine.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to overnight.*
- Roll – Preheat the oven to 350°F. Scoop dough with a cookie scoop for even portioning into 20 cookies, then roll cookie dough into even-sized balls (it's easier to roll with wet hands) and generously roll each into powdered sugar.
- Bake – Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet, being sure to leave space between each of the cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Cookies will come out soft but will harden on the outside as they cool down. Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool.
Notes
- Room Temperature: Keep your Chocolate Crinkle Cookies stored in an airtight container on the counter. They should stay fresh for up to a week.
- Freezing: Freeze your dough balls for up to 2 months in an airtight container. When you are ready to bake, remove them from the freezer and allow them to thaw overnight in the fridge before rolling them in powdered sugar, or bake from frozen, adding 1-2 minutes to the bake time.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
More Cookies Recipes You’ll Love
Cookie recipes, like my chocolate crinkle cookies, are so fun to make and share, so once you try this recipe, check out these other sweet treats:
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Meringue Cookies
- Madeleine Cookies
- Macaroon Cookies
- Toffee Recipe
- Cranberry Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Palmiers Cookies
- Rugelach
- Biscotti
Hi! I’m Natasha Kravchuk, a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, recipe developer, food photographer, and writer. Here you’ll find delicious, reliable recipes made with simple ingredients, plus easy step-by-step photos and videos to help you cook confidently at home. 
I love this recipe, it is one of my go-to’s. I add 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract to make it more festive during the holiday season!
What a great idea!
Thanks for the recipe, which turned out really well. Unfortunately, because of so many ads on the website, it was very difficult to see the recipe and even when I went to print it out instead, I found it frustrating – so that’s a big disincentive to use your site again, I’m sorry to say 🙁
Thanks for your feedback Anna. You can definitely print the recipe instead. Click Jump to recipe, print, save as pdf and print from there. Did you also try closing the ads? You should be able to close them after a while.
My grandchildren love this so much that I make it every time they come over! I love the recipe so much that I make it on holidays. Making them are so fun even though I don’t make it as good as Natasha’s they are always a delight every time we have them.
You’re very welcome, Laurie! Glad they were enjoyed!
Don’t know what I’ve been doing my whole life without this recipe. So good. On my third attempt, lol, I will be chilling the dough longer so I can cut them a bit like an icebox cookie. I’m looking for a thin crunchy chew! Honestly, I think it’s the best chocolate cookie I have ever had. Seriously. And with oil, not butter, who knew.
Hi Julie! Thanks so much for the feedback!
x
Can I freeze the cookies after they are baked.
Hi Margaret, These are freezer-friendly before baking (see my note above). I haven’t tried freezing them after baking to advise on the outcome. I think it could work, but not sure how it would affect the texture and likely you’ll need to re-coat them in powdered sugar.
Great recipe. It was easy to make and I only refrigerated the dough for 3 hours and it was fine. Thank you, we enjoyed it.
First chocolate cookie I’ve ever made that tasted like chocolate and not like brown and disappointment. They came out looking perfect too! Definitely recommend
Perfect the first time I made this recipe but the dough was too soft the second time and I made a point of measuring carefully and chilled the dough for 4 hours then chilled again once they were on the cooking sheet. Still tasted good, just didn’t look perfect. Even my cookie scoop got stuck with the second dough.
i have made your recipe for years and they are always a HIT!
i want to try something different for friends who prefer dark chocolate. do you think these will be good using Hershey’s Specialty Dark cocoa powder?
Hi Bianca! I’m so glad you’re loving the recipe! It should be fine to use extra dark cocoa too.
I made these with Almond flour( gluten free) and there’s no difference in the taste, texture. I added a Tablespoon of instant coffee for a more intense chocolate flavor. Delicious
Love it
Hi, I haven’t try this recipe yet but I wonder if I could use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.
Hi Lucia, I honestly haven’t tried using butter, ghee, or coconut oil yet to advise. I’ve tried vegetable oil (or canola, or light olive oil) successfully.
I have made this recipe about a billion times, and every time they have been absolutely perfect. But, I was wondering, why does this cookie have no butter? I have no problems with this recipe, but they taste so buttery and delicious, yet there is no butter in them! Why did you decide to do this? Is it because that’s normal for a chocolate cookie? Or did you just go with oil because it was easier?
Hi Dorothy, I’m so glad you loved it. We believe we found the perfect balance without it. I hope you make and love it many more times to come.
Really easy recipe to follow and cookies come out perfect
I tweaked mine by not rolling in powdered sugar but rather sprinkle only the top of the scooped dough…perfect for me
Thanks
Fantastic recipe. Easy to follow and with ingredients I often already have at home. Family loves them, gifted them to a friend and they wanted the recipe!
Thanks for sharing!
That’s great, Natalie! Thank you for sharing.
It’s totally unclear if you combine the confectioners sugar into the dough or if that’s for coating afterwards. Confectioners sugar falls under “sugar”, so that would include it under combine sugar, because there’s no specification which sugar.
HI Maddy, thank you for asking – I went ahead and updated the recipe card to specify “granulated sugar” when the first sugar is added. Hopefully you saw the reference to powdered sugar in the rolling step.
Can I make these using gluten free flour?
Hi Fran. I haven’t tested that but some of my readers have reported good results using GF flour here.
Just made these cookies and they turned out delicious !!! Thank you for sharing this easy-to-follow and amazing cookie recipe 💗