A cocoa-rich, sugar-dusted recipe from Sally’s Baking for a slow baking afternoon.
This is Sally McKenney’s measured double chocolate crinkle cookie recipe, with a sticky cocoa dough that rests in the refrigerator before it is rolled in two kinds of sugar.
The formula below follows Sally’s published measurements. We have not documented a Baked & Bouquets bake of this exact recipe, so the decorative chocolate-chip image is not a photo of a finished test batch.
Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Makes 20–22 cookies. Prep: 3 hours 20 minutes, including chill. Bake: 11–12 minutes.
Ingredients
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (125 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (51 g) natural unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (180 g) semisweet chocolate chips
- 3 tablespoons (35 g) granulated sugar, for rolling
- 1 cup (120 g) confectioners’ sugar, for rolling
Equipment
- Stand or hand mixer
- Two mixing bowls
- Whisk
- Spatula
- Kitchen scale or measuring cups
- Baking sheets
- Parchment paper
- Medium cookie scoop or tablespoon
- Cooling rack
Method
- Cream the butter and sugars. Beat softened butter with both ½-cup measures of sugar for 2–3 minutes, until the mixture looks lighter and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla; scrape the bowl so no unmixed butter remains.
- Make the cocoa dough. Whisk flour, natural cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a second bowl. Add them to the wet mixture on low speed; stop when the dry streaks disappear, then mix in the chocolate chips. The dough should be thick and sticky.
- Chill before shaping. Cover the dough tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or up to 3 days as directed by Sally’s recipe. This rest firms a dough that would be difficult to roll warm.
- Warm just enough to scoop. Let the refrigerated dough stand for about 10 minutes; after a rest longer than 3 hours, allow about 20 minutes. It should yield to a scoop but still feel cool.
- Prepare the oven and coating. Heat the oven to 350°F and line baking sheets with parchment. Put the 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and the confectioners’ sugar in separate shallow bowls.
- Portion and roll. Shape about 1½ tablespoons of dough per cookie. Roll each portion lightly in granulated sugar, then generously in confectioners’ sugar. Leave about 3 inches between the coated balls.
- Bake and check. Bake for 11–12 minutes, until the edges look set while the centers remain soft. If they have not begun to spread by minute 9, Sally suggests briefly tapping the pan on the counter before finishing the bake.
- Let them settle. Leave the cookies on their baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack. Their centers will settle a little as they cool.