Sprinkle of Science

Ingredients for Easy Halloween Cookies:

• All-purpose flour – Be sure to measure your flour correctly! If you add too much flour, you may end up with tough cookies that don’t spread, are cakey, dry, or taste bland.
• Black Cocoa powder 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 Black cocoa, feel free to use Dutch-process cocoa powder instead. Learn more about Dutch-process cocoa here. Be sure to also measure your cocoa correctly, as cocoa powder is a drying ingredient and too much will dry out your cookies.
• Baking soda & baking powder – Check out my Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder article to learn about the surprising differences between these two leaveners!
• Cornstarch – To keep the consistency of these cookies soft and tender.
• Salt – Enhances the flavor.
• Granulated sugar and light brown sugar – For sweetness, moisture, and flavor. Do not reduce the sugar – learn why here.
• Butter – Always use unsalted butter in baking, at a cool room temperature (around 67°F is perfect). Learn why butter temperature is important in baking here.
• 1 egg – At room temperature.
• Vanilla extract – For flavor.
• White chocolate chips & Halloween-themed M&Ms – For flavor, and to bring a super fun Halloween-y flair to our cookies!
• Candy googly eyes – For so much additional fun!!

How to Make Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies:

1. 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.
2. Add the vanilla and egg. Scrape the bowl down before adding in the vanilla extract and the room temperature egg, beating well to combine.
3. 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.
4. Add the chocolate. Fold in the white chocolate chips and M&Ms with a rubber spatula.
5. 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, M&Ms, and candy eyeballs.
6. Bake. At 350°F for about 12 minutes, until puffy but still soft, being careful not to overbake.
   Allow to cool slightly on the baking tray. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, 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

Can I Make These into Halloween Cookie Bars?

Yes! These work beautifully as cookie bars. Here’s how:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a light-colored metal 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil and use metal binder clips to secure in place. Make the recipe as instructed, then place the cookie dough in the prepared pan. Decorate the top with additional M&Ms, white chocolate chips, and candy eyeballs as desired. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges appear set but the center still jiggles slightly. Allow to cool before removing from the pan and slicing into 16 bars.

How to Keep Cookies Soft

To keep your baked Halloween Cookies soft, you can add an apple wedge, piece of bread, or a tortilla on the top and bottom of the cookies 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. A tortilla is a favorite of mine because it takes up much less room than a slice of bread and doesn’t transfer any flavors or aromas like an apple wedge can.

Alternatively, you can freeze the cookie dough so you can just bake off what you need, then store the rest in the freezer until you next crave fresh chocolaty cookies! More on this below.