Crinkle, Crinkle, the Best Cookies for Kris Kringle
Every household has their own holiday traditions, and for many of us making Christmas cookies with loved ones is at the heart of those magical memories. From rolling out gingerbread dough with Grandma when we could barely reach the countertop, to having our own little kitchen elves to help us measure, mix, and roll out Christmas cookies from the treasure trove of recipes we’ve collected over the years—baking together is one of our favorite ways to slow down with family during a season that can be anything but quiet. And at the top of our must-bake list this year? These peppermint-frosted chocolate crinkle cookies! For even more holiday baking inspiration, try our gingerbread loaf!
The Best Crinkle Cookie Recipe
In our search for the perfect crinkle cookie recipe, we kept coming across one particular version from Cook’s Illustrated. We even found a video for their recipe on their website. After watching the video for the zillionth time, we were ready to dive in. A few tips, mostly learned from our mistakes (you’re welcome):
- Stick to the highest quality chocolate you can, and aim for a high cocoa content—look for at least 85% cocoa content. Don’t worry about bitterness—these cookies have not one but THREE kinds of sugar in them, so they’ll be plenty sweet. In fact, you want that cocoa-y bitterness to counteract all that sugar.
- Use your kitchen scale! We suffered through a few wonky batches when we measured by volume. For baking, the best practice is always to use weight because flour can settle and the same volume of flour can have a very different weight. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, add this one to your wish list right now!
- Frosting makes everything better. Always. Especially if it’s peppermint frosting rolled in crushed candy canes.
How to Make Santa-Approved Christmas Crinkle Cookies:
First of all, follow the directions. Sounds easy enough, right? But seriously, just take a minute to read the recipe through before you begin. The first time we made these easy chocolate cookies we used some regular chocolate chips we just had on-hand and didn’t bother to weigh the dry goods out, thinking it didn’t matter all that much. That batch of crinkle cookies turned into crinkle pizookies (though we topped them with peppermint ice cream and can't really say we were too distraught over it). After several more test batches, we were finally ready to share our chocolaty-rich Christmas cookies with you. So, two keys to success:
- Read the recipe thoroughly before you begin.
- WEIGH! Weigh your dry ingredients. It ensures that you’ll be truly replicating our recipe, which should guarantee success.
Well, Hello, Peppermint Frosting
What really elevates these chocolate crackle cookies is the peppermint cream icing. We’re talking next-level sandwich cookie deliciousness, with a big slather of icing between the chocolate cookies, and then the whole glorious, festive thing is rolled in crushed up candy canes for a Christmastime treat that looks as good as it tastes. In fact, when the holidays roll around, we’ve been known to make a double batch of the icing itself just to have on hand for things like:
- Frosting a batch of double-chocolate brownies
- Slathering over Christmas-morning cinnamon rolls
- Generously spooning onto graham crackers for an after-school treat
Tools You’ll Need to Make Our Chocolate Sandwich Cookies:
- Kitchen scale. While not an absolute necessity, we found our peppermint crinkle cookies to be way more consistent when measured by weight instead of volume.
- Stand mixer. Also doable without, but a heavy-duty stand mixer whips the peppermint icing smoother than any hand mixer we’ve tried.
- Gold baking sheets. Again, not completely necessary, but they are totally swoon worthy.
- Festive cookie tray. Not that we’d take any excuse to head straight to Home Goods to see what new holiday pieces went to the kitchen department today, but ...
Hostess with the Mostest
Hosting the holidays at your place this year? Here are a few more festive—and easy—recipes to help celebrate the season with family and friends:
- Every holiday party needs a good cocktail, like our Grapefruit Cardamom Gin Fizz .
- Our Eggnog Pull-Apart Bread is the perfect make-ahead Christmas morning meal.
- Forget the holiday ham and make our Wine Braised Beef with Mushrooms instead.
Because Everybody Loves a Crinkle Cookie
Our easy chocolate crinkle cookies recipe have you the toast of your neighborhood cookie exchange? Show us your chocolate crackle-y beauties and tag us @themodernproper and #themodernproper.
