I’ve been wanting to make chocolate sugar cookies for awhile.
But not just any sugar cookies because I don’t even really like sugar cookies.
Sugar cookies are usually too crispy, crunchy, and dry. Those adjectives don’t belong with cookies.
These cookies are moist, soft, and chewy. And thick. So you can really sink your teeth into them.
And I didn’t want white-sugar sugar cookies. Way too boring.
So I made them dark in two ways. With dark cocoa powder and dark brown sugar.
If you don’t have dark cocoa powder and run into snags trying to find it like I did for over two years, order it to save time and a headache. Or use regular unsweetened natural cocoa powder. Your cookies just won’t be as dark.
I tested and wrote the recipe with dark brown sugar rather than light, and recommend it. If all you have is light brown sugar, you can make dark brown sugar by stirring in about 1 or 2 teaspoons of molasses into the 3/4 cup dark brown sugar. It’s not a perfect conversion, but it’ll work.
The recipe has a very short ingredients list and the batch size is small, only making about 15 cookies.
The dough comes together in no time. Make sure to chill it before baking so your cookies bake up thick. Baking with unchilled, warm dough will result in thinner, flatter cookies.
Although they’re thick, the cookies stay soft from using cornstarch. I have written about cornstarch so many times and why I love it. It’s my secret weapon for creating super soft cookies that stay soft, but not cakey.
They’re fudgy, rich, intensely chocolaty, and not overly sweet.
I try to judge a cookie overall by the quality of the dough. These aren’t loaded up with add-ins, candy, chocolate chips or chunks, or anything else. Just boldly chocolaty dough.
Cookies with Reese’s Pieces and M&M’s are destined to be good. It’s what you get when you strip that all away and focus on the dough, sans fillers. And these cookies deliver.
They’re the cookies I recommend for bad days, PMS days, or when the chocolate monster is calling your name and nothing else will do.
I imagine some people would like to wash these down with a big glass of milk or a cup of coffee. I recommend red wine, Homemade Baileys, or champagne. It’s a holiday week, after all.
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Dark Chocolate Dark Brown Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup dark brown sugar, packed (I have not tried using light brown sugar)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsweetened natural dark cocoa powder, I used Hershey’s Special Dark; regular cocoa powder or Dutch-processed may be substituted
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use an electric hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes).
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the remaining ingredients and mix on low speedy until just combined, about 1 to 2 minutes.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping 2-tablespoon mounds (I made 15). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat or spray with cooking spray and place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart although they don’t spread much. I bake 8 cookies per sheet.
- Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set. It’s hard to tell with dark cookies when they’re done, but do not bake longer than 10 minutes as cookies will firm up as they cool; baking longer causes cookies to set up too crunchy and crumbly. (The cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temp for 15 minutes, and were baked for 8 minutes, with trays rotated at the 4-minute mark). Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Thanks for the 25 Buttery and Cheesy Recipes and Kerrygold Giveaway entries
What’s your favorite chocolate cookie recipe or dark chocolate recipe?
Wow, these are borderline brownie soft/fudgy! Love it. I am a huge soft & chewy sugar cookie fan. The only time I want the crisp ones is when they’re iced cutouts shaped as trees and snowmen in December. :)
And even then in Dec, I would rather go to town on the holiday candy than crunchy cookies…LOL :)
These look seriously delicious! Looks like a brownie in cookie form! Love!!!
I love how dark and rich these sugar cookies look. You usually don’t see that with sugar cookies, what a unique yummy twist!
Normally they are thin and boring which is why I probably don’t ever make them :)
These look quite delicious. I didn’t realise there were different types of cocoa ie dark and regular, haven’t seen that choice here (in the UK) but will look into it. I will try them this week anyway with my normal cocoa.
There’s lots of different cocoa; regular, dark, Dutch-processed, and not. Hershey’s Special Dark is considered a hybrid of all of them, if you will. If you google ‘different types of cocoa’ you will get more info than you can imagine. I discussed it at length in my cookbook, and now know more than I need to after all my research :)
Thanks Averie, I’ll see what I can get here and make them this week!
What a great use for Hershey’s special dark and dark brown sugar! You have no shortage of ideas for delectable, rich chocolate cookies…oh dear lord these look so good! I decided on the cheesy PB crackers and decided to use the tweaks to make them like cheeze-its. It worked–though I was in a hurry, so they are more the size of saltines. My husband doesn’t mind this little difference at all (they stack up for easy noshing–no bowl required). These are seriously good, and without all the added junk in store-bought!
Oh I am so glad to hear you made the Cheesy Crackers from my cookbook! It was one of those recipes when I was making it, taking the pics, typing it, editing all those pics…it was just ONE recipe and it went on and on and on from my end (and at that stage in the game, didn’t know what pics the publisher would include in the finished book). But I remember those crackers & recipe having a life of its own from the research to making it, pics, etc. So hearing that you made them, and loved them, makes it seem so much more worthwhile! :)
And trust me, if I wasnt making them for a cookbook, saltine-sized sounds WAY more convenient than Cheeze-It size! :) TOTALLY! And that the spices/tweaks you used and the overall flavor came through and translated. I cannot tell you how happy this all makes me! (maybe you can tell from the bible I’m writing back!)
And these choc cookies. Very good and such a NON-fussy cookie. The opposite of some of my other previous choc cookie recipes that go on and on. Not this one!
Cookies for PMS days? Sold! I love the idea of a sugar cookie I can sink my teeth into!! *arg* And here I was about to make some plain, old, white sugar cookies…time for a much-needed grocery run. :D
Chased with red wine or bubbly. Ba-bye PMS :)
These look so thick and soft and perfect! I’ve never made chocolate sugar cookies before, I’ll be pinning this!
Thanks for pinning!
I love sugar cookies, and I’ve made chocolate ones before, but they didn’t look like these. I’ve got these pinned…they look incredible!
Thanks for pinning, Marcie!
Now that’s what I’m talking about.
I love a good deep dark chocolate chip cookie.
Oh these are SO you! I know you like the texture of the Torres cookies and something about these reminds me of those, in dark chocolate format. I hope you’re having a fab weekend!
Yes, I come from a long line of chocaholics :) At first I thought this might be another coconut oil cookie recipe, but you’re so great at achieving that chewy, moist quality even without coconut. They look amazing!
Thanks, Christy. I was going to use coconut oil but since not everyone has it or wants to bake with it or likes it, I wasn’t up for answering a million questions so just used butter. But the recipe would be AWESOME replacing the butter with 1/2 cup soft (but not melted) coconut oil!
Oh great, thanks for letting me know! I’m never sure if I can just replace the butter with coconut oil. Definitely making these now!
LMK how they go!!
I did make these with coconut oil and they are delicious — the coconut is just barely there, and the dark chocolate goes great with it. For more coconutty flavor i bet some coconut in the batter would be really good — but the rest of my family isn’t crazy about coconut, so those would be for me. :)
I baked mine for 9 minutes and I think next time I’ll go a little less, so they are even chewier.
To @Sharon – Thanks for trying them and yes, I prefer 8 minute cookies in general (sometimes even 7 – depending on the dough. But I like things one step above raw :)) But for these, 8 was plenty for me! Glad you liked them and that the coconut oil worked well! Adding coconut to the batter is an okay move but it will absorb some moisture and bulk up the dough, so you may need even less flour. Just a tip if you do try that.
I love a good soft cookie, especially sugar cookies. These sound wonderful and I really like the addition of dark chocolate!
You have go to be kidding me! I mean the only reason I don’t make a lot of sugar cookies is because there is typically no chocolate involved. NOw though? I might have a problem! These look amazing. What an awesome idea Averie!
Yeah, normally they’re just…meh, whatever. So I had to doctor them up :)
Soft sugar cookies are the best! These must be extra soft with brown sugar instead of granulated.
Yes and the cornstarch, too!
I could see these going down veryyy smoothly followed by a class of champagne!
These look sinfully delicious! I love all the dark chocolate in this cookie!
These look AMAZING Averie! I bet they’d be delicious made into whoopie pies…but honestly, they look so good I bet I’d devour them straight before I got the ambition to make any topping! And like you said, sometimes, you just need a good cookie without all the add-ins. Now I’m having chocolate cookie cravings…
I was going to stuff/frost them, maybe with a peanut butter buttercream but then decided ya know, there’s plenty going on here and I don’t ‘need’ to doctor them up (and make another project for myself to clean up after!) so I left them alone…but…they would make excellent sandwich cookies, indeed!