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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.
Love this recipe. Cookies are delicious and look spooky & adorable. I absolutely love a cookie that can start a conversation. “Those are so clever and delicious… where did you find the recipe?” Would definitely make again and as often as I can before Halloween is over.
These were super fun to make and very cute! I recommend adding some of the extra decorations right after the cookies come out of the oven. This helps the m&ms keep their bright color.
This was a hit with several members of my family. Very soft and chocolatey but not too sweet. I used Dutch cocoa.
I just made a double batch of these last night for my son’s school fall best bake sale and they look so darn cute! What’s even better is that they taste amazing, like a giant Oreo cookie, which is perfect for me because I only like the cookie part of Oreos (I usually take out the filling). This is going to be a regular on my cookie rotation. Thank you for this recipe!
These were fun to make. I used mint M&M type candies. YUM.
yummy and seasonal! I used reeses pieces since I could not find Halloween m&ms. they turned out soft and delicious
These are so fun! the one issue I had is my first batch turned out very salty and not sweet at all… I’m wondering if it was my black cocoa. So second time around I did less salt and more sugar, so good! Definitely don’t overbake!
I didn’t have Halloween m&ms so I used chocolate chips. They were a huge hit and loved by all!
Do you need to pack the brown sugar?
Do I need to refrigerate the cookie dough before baking?
Thanks
Hi Eugenia! We highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, for the best accuracy and quickest cleanup! Learn more about that here. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, just lightly pack the brown sugar into your 1/4 cup. No refrigeration is needed for this recipe. I also highly recommend reading through the pink tip box (above the recipe) for more tips and information about this recipe, before beginning. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try 🙂
These cookies are absolutely amazing! I wasn’t sure how much of a hit they’d be because my family usually strongly prefers natural or Dutch process cocoa over black cocoa, but everyone thought they were delicious. Within minutes of trying the cookies, family and friends requested that I update the M&M colors to make this recipe as Christmas cookies. I’ve even been told that these are “the best cookies yet,” and considering I make lots of incredible Handle the Heat cookies, that is quite the compliment!
Definitely for chocolate lovers. Easy to make. Very festive and delicious.
Turned out great! I used dark chocolate M&Ms and they were delicious