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. 
Hi, i tried this recipe and generously rolled the batter to confectioner sugar but when its cooked the sugar was melted i mean it taste perfect but the appearance seems off 😅
Hi Natasha I made these cookies and they came out PERFECT ! Didn’t lasted long though 😁 How can I turn them into lemon crinkle cookies ? Maybe I substitute coconuts to choc powder ? Plus lemon zest and lemon juice ?
Thank you so much
Hi Sue, while I haven’t tried making these with lemon or coconut flavoring, one of my readers mentioned this in the comments: “I’ve also used lemon cake mix to make lemon crinkle cookies” I hope that helps!
I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while, saw your post and thought I would share ~ I love lemon too! https://orderisda.org/culture/our-recipes/recipe-limoncello-crinkle-cookies/
I make these 24/7 :))
They are AWESOME! Totally recommend them to everyone!
Thanks for the awesome review!
This is similar to another recipe I was using only with more oil. I found this made the dough easier to work with, but the cookies did not spread enough – the opposite problem of what some others were having.
I made these for the New Year! I made a mistake, because I don’t think they will last that long. My family loves them. They came out perfect. This will be a holiday keeper. Thank you so much for the recipe.
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite, Linda!
Hi Natasha!
Have you tried adding chocolate chips and walnuts to these cookies?
Thanks,
Inna
Hi Inna, I haven’t tried that yet but feel free to experiment. I think that could work! Please let us know how it goes if you try it.
I noticed you said to “roll out the dough”. But if you are making balls why would you roll it out? I just used a cookie scoop. Maybe it’s a misprint?
Hi Lois, you are correct. Those instructions could have been written more clearly. I have updated the print friend recipe to be more clear. Thank you for pointing that out.
This was the first year trying the Chocolate Crinkle cookies. My granddaughter and I made them and were really impressed with their rich flavor and unique “look”. Some of mine looked like your picture but others seemed to suck the powdered sugar into the cookie. Maybe I just need to be sure there is a thick coating of powdered sugar on them. But, they were great!!! The combination of crispy and fudgey was a real winner. Everybody loved them and I can’t keep grabbing one every time I pass by.
Hi Lois, great to know that the recipe was a success! Thank you for your good comments and feedback, we appreciate it.
Cookies are delicious. Definitely a keeper and a family favourite.
That’s just awesome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review!
This is pretty much the same recipe I’ve seen in so many other sites….but I go to yours because I appreciate and always find your additional notes and photos helpful. That was the case with these cookies as well. I made note that the flour measurement may impact the end result as did the refrigeration time. I also did not overmix. They turned out perfectly and will become a staple year round. Thank you 🙂
I’m so happy you love our recipes! Thank you so much for the fantastic review and your encouraging words. I am smiling big reading your comment
This is by far the best Crinkle cookie recipe. Thank you so much for this recipe. Was a big hit in my Christmas cookie trays.
I’m so happy you loved the cookies!
I made this yeasterday and the result was amazing 😍 very easy to follow. I used olive oil and chilled for 5 hrs. Thank you Natasha ❤️
You’re welcome, Jazzy. Good to know that you loved the result!
Love your recipes.
Keep them coming.
But as for all the pop ups, adds ouff hard to focus.
Hi Jocelyn, since we don’t sell anything on our site and our recipes are completely free for readers, the ads are what make it all possible and also create jobs (we have 3 team members) in addition to supporting my own family. Unless we moved to a paid subscription (which no one is asking for), the ads are a necessary thing.
Hi Natasha!
These cookies are amazing, my whole family loves them and they are a big hit everywhere I take them! I have a question tho… I want to make these for Christmas but I want to make them red. Would adding food coloring alter their taste? And how much would you recommend adding? Thanks in advance!
Thank you for your awesome feedback, Madelene. I honestly haven’t tried making these cookies red to advise. If you do an experiment, please share with us how it goes.
Food coloring has no taste so should not affect the cookie flavor. However, I don’t know how much that extra liquid would do to them cause you’d probably have to add a whole bottle of red coloring.
I followed the recipe to a tee, refrigerating the dough overnight. They are delicious. I’ll be sure to be extra generous with the powdered sugar next time.
That sounds like a great plan, April. Thank you so much for the review!
These cookies can be tricky. I chilled the dough for 30 hrs, and put the bowl of dough in the freezer between batches. The dough was still quite soft, but manageable. I made very small balls..large marble size, and still baked 10 mins. They were a bit flat, but the powdered sugar stayed, and the flavor was there.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Kathy! I would recommend looking through the tips to ensure adjustments weren’t made resulting in a different outcome. I’m glad you enjoyed the flavor!
Hi, Can this cookie be made into a thumbprint? – I wanted to add a rasperry jam to the middle.
Hi Kim, I haven’t tested that to advise. If you experiment, let me know how you liked the recipe
Follow recipe and turn out great. Hubby loves them. Very easy to make and I am not a baker!
I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed this recipe, Ginny!
My dough has been refrigerting for almost four hours. It is very gooey and hard to roll into balls. Do I need to refrigerate longer?
Hi Katherine, You may cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to overnight.
Hii Natasha! HUGEE fan of your recipes!
Tried this one, followed recipe and measurements exactly but cookies turned out flat and started to burn from the bottom quite early on – what could I be doing wrong
Hi Zara, there are a couple of reasons why the dough might seem flat. Please see the common questions section titled: “Why are my Chocolate Crinkle Cookies flat?”
Yeah I think perhaps the dough didn’t chill for long enough, but what can I do about the bottom burning within 5 mins of the baking time, please help
Hi Meen, if cookies are not spreading, it could be due to using too much flour. Check out our post on how to measure ingredients for baking. Also, make sure you are not using convection oven settings. This recipe is written for a conventional oven.
Can I bake with a different oil? Such as butter/ ghee or coconut oil? I don’t consume vegetable oil and wanted to know if alternates
Hi Natasha, I honestly haven’t tried using butter, ghee, or coconut oil yet to advise. I’ve tried 1/2 cup vegetable oil (or canola, or light olive oil)