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Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Mild chocolate flavor to let those mix-ins really shine.
Texture: The cookie is ultra soft and chewy with blissful crunches from the Halloween M&Ms and googly candy eyes.
Ease: SO easy to make.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: It’s the perfect quick yet impressive Halloween dessert.
Festive and easy, these Halloween Cookies are an absolute must-make for your friends and family for a spooky movie night at home or for the Halloween block party!
No tricks here, just a delicious and adorably festive treat!
They’re so easy to make, too. No crazy decorating with royal icing required! Plus, these are so fun to get the kids involved with baking up a spooky treat together.
If you make these for your Halloween party, you might want to make a double batch. They go fast! 😉
I’m obsessed with these cookies. I make them all the time for friends and they’re always a hit. So creative and can be switched up for Christmas or Easter.
These are one of my favorite Halloween treats to make each year, and I hope you love this recipe as much as I do (and the guests who have enjoyed them off my dessert table too!).
Key Ingredient Notes
This recipe is very straight-forward, but there are a few special ingredients doing some heavy lifting. Here’s what you should know:
Black Cocoa or Dutch-Process Cocoa Powder – Black cocoa can be ordered online and will provide that festive deep dark color. It also makes the cookies taste like Oreos! If you can’t find it, use Dutch-process cocoa powder instead. Be sure to also measure your cocoa correctly, as cocoa powder is a drying ingredient and too much will dry out your cookies.
Cornstarch – To keep the consistency of these cookies soft and tender.
Butter – Be sure it’s at a cool room temperature (around 67°F is perfect), and not too warm or greasy. Learn why butter temperature is important in baking here.
White chocolate chips & Halloween-themed M&Ms – For flavor, and to bring a super fun Halloween-y flair to our cookies! I used the “Ghoul Mix” M&Ms originally in this recipe, which appear to have been discontinued in recent years (boo!). Use the regular Halloween M&Ms instead.
Candy googly eyes – Optional, but so festive! Easy to find under the Wilton brand at most grocery stores seasonally, or online.
How to Make Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies:
- Cream the butter and sugars. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the vanilla and egg. Scrape the bowl down before adding in the vanilla extract and the room temperature egg, beating well to combine.
- Combine the dry ingredients. Sift together the flour, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Gradually add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until a slightly sticky dough forms.
- Add the chocolate. Fold in the white chocolate chips and M&Ms with a rubber spatula.
- Portion out the cookies and decorate. Using a large spring-loaded scoop, drop 3-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Dot the balls of cookie dough with extra chips and M&Ms.
- Bake. At 350°F for about 12 minutes, until puffy but still soft, being careful not to overbake.
Carefully press candy eyeballs into the cookies while still hot. Allow to cool slightly on the baking tray before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Can I Change up the Mix-Ins?
Yes! You can absolutely switch out the white chocolate chips and Halloween-themed M&Ms for just about whatever you like! Just be sure to keep the total weight (or volume) the same as written in the recipe as well as using similarly sized mix-ins so the cookie dough balls stay together. Here are some Halloween cookie mix-in ideas:
- Dark chocolate chips
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Reese’s Pieces
- Well-chopped candy bars
You can also add candy corn to the tops of the cookies after baking, along with the candy eyeballs.
Storage & Make ahead
Room Temperature: These are best enjoyed when fresh, but they will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Be sure they are completely cooled before storing.
- How to Keep Cookies Soft: Add an apple wedge, piece of bread, or a tortilla (my favorite) to the container a day or two after baking them, or whenever you find the texture beginning to harden. The moisture from this will migrate to your cookies, making them soft and chewy again.
Freeze Cookie Dough: I love the taste of cookies straight from the oven best (who doesn’t!?). I always keep pre-scooped balls of various types of cookie dough in a resealable bag in my freezer, so I can bake cookies off and have them warm from the oven in a matter of minutes whenever I want! Find all my tips for freezing cookie dough, and baking from frozen here.
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Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 1 cup (127 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (43 grams)
black cocoa powder (or Dutch-process), sifted - 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup (85 grams) white chocolate chips, plus more for garnish
- 1 cup (218 grams) Halloween M&MS, plus more for garnish*
Edible candy eyeballs , for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl down before adding in the vanilla extract and egg, beating well to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Gradually add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until a slightly sticky dough forms. Fold in the white chocolate chips and M&Ms with a rubber spatula.
- Using a large spring-loaded cookie scoop, drop 3-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Dot the balls of cookie dough with extra chips, M&Ms.
- Bake for about 12 minutes, until puffy but still soft, being careful not to overbake. Carefully press the candy eyeballs into the cookies while still hot from the oven. Allow to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Photos by Joanie Simon.
I don’t think I’ve found a single recipe by Handle the Heat that I’m not obsessed with. These are AMAZING. A rich melt in your mouth chocolate cookie with yummy bits of candy in true Halloween fashion. Will absolutely be making these again.
So easy and delicious! Had to use regular m+ms and just used dark chocolate cocoa powder but still delicious and looked great
These are super easy and even tastier! Almost like a brownie cookie! Perfect for our Halloween pumpkin carving birthday party tomorrow!
It was awesome to make this cookies. Thanks!
Love this recipe – they’re too cute! And bonus for being delicious!
So cute – and equally delicious! I had to make a few swaps for my family to make them nut-free (so Canadian Smarties instead of M&Ms – I picked out the Halloween colors). And I found a nut-free brand of Dutch processed cocoa, but black cocoa definitely would have been spookier. But they taste SO good, and were so simple to make!
These are so fun! Definitely recommend adding a few extra M&Ms on top of each cookie for the extra color.
I love this and wanna try right away, could I simply using food coloring in black in usual cocoa powder as Icannot get it in my hometown? If yes, how many I should use base on your recipe? Thanks for your advice
Hi Wendy! No, we don’t recommend adding food coloring as adding excess liquid will alter the texture of the cookie. Check out the pink tip box (above the recipe) for more info on the cocoa powders recommended here 🙂
These are delicious! Delightfully simple too. Tastes like an Oreo!
I’m excited to make this! Can I sub with bobs red mill gluten free flour? There’s a 1 to 1 baking flour. Would this change the consistency of the cookie?
Hi Sharon! We don’t test our recipes with gluten free ingredients, so I can’t say for sure – but yes, such substitutions will alter the texture of the cookie. If you decide to experiment, let us know how it goes 🙂
dear thank you for your advice. I finally made this with bamboo carbon powder and outcome is similar; unfortunately cookies are underdone as the black couldn’t told me 😛 though followed to bake 12 mins at least. I will keep study your blog and tips for improvement. Thank you for sharing
Hi Wendy! So glad to hear that the cookies were still good, even if slightly underbaked! Happy baking 🙂
This recipe hits the trifecta! Delicious, adorable, easy. I will absolutely make these again!
Absolutely delicious! My grandson said it was a brownie but soaked like a cookie!
This recipe is a keeper for sure! Can adjust it with the colored M&M’s of every holiday!