These fudgy, brownie-like chocolate crinkle cookies are a beloved American Christmas tradition — and while they weren’t gracing Gilded Age cookie platters, their roots run deep into that era.
The “crinkle” cookie was born in the kitchen of Helen Fredell, a Minnesota home baker whose molasses crinkles caught the attention of Betty Crocker’s test kitchen in the early 1950s. But Mrs. Fredell’s spiced cookies descended from a long line of molasses-based treats that would have been familiar to any 1880s household. Molasses was the everyday sweetener of the Victorian kitchen — cheaper than refined sugar and essential for everything from gingerbread to Joe Froggers.
The chocolate version swaps those warm spices for deep, dark cocoa, but keeps the signature technique: rolling the dough in powdered sugar before baking. As the cookies spread in the oven, the sugary coating cracks into that distinctive snowy pattern — earning them the nickname “cookies in the snow.”
Rich, chewy, and deceptively simple to make, these are the cookies that disappear first from any holiday tin.
Decadent Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Equipment
- 1 kitchen scale
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips, chopped 227g
- 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature 113g
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar 135g
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla Extract
- 1 tbsp. espresso powder optional; for enhanced chocolate flavor
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. table salt
- 1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose Flour
- 3 tbsp. confectioners' sugar for coating
Instructions
- Place the chocolate and butter in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, and heat or microwave until the butter melts. Remove it from the heat, and stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.
- In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, eggs, vanilla and espresso powder. Stir in the chocolate mixture, baking powder and salt, then the flour. Chill the dough for 2 to 3 hours, or overnight; it'll firm up considerably.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a couple of baking sheets, or line them with parchment.
- To shape the cookies: Put about a cup of confectioners' sugar into a shallow bowl. Use a spoon, or your fingers, to scoop out a heaping teaspoon of dough; a flat, teaspoon-sized cookie scoop works well here. Use a digital scale and weigh 20g portions. Roll into a ball. Drop the balls in the confectioners' sugar as you go.
- Once about 5 or 6 are in the bowl, shake and toss the bowl to coat the balls with the sugar. (If you try to do this with too many balls at a time, they'll just stick together.)Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2" between them.
- Bake the chocolate crinkle cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, switching the position of the pans (top to bottom, and front to back) midway through the baking time. As the cookies bake, they'll flatten out and acquire their distinctive "streaked" appearance.
- Remove the chocolate crinkle cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool on a rack. Store them at room temperature, well wrapped, for several days; freeze for longer storage.
