Hot Cocoa Cookies are full of hot cocoa mix, chocolate chips, crushed candy canes and marshmallow bits all baked into one delicious cookie! These hot chocolate cookies are simple to make and taste just like your favorite cup of hot cocoa!
Hot Cocoa Cookies combine two of my favorite things about winter – hot chocolate and baked goodies. You can’t go wrong when the recipe includes hot chocolate mix, marshmallow bits, and chocolate chips! Recently I started adding crushed candy canes to the recipe because I absolutely love peppermint in my hot cocoa, but if you don’t like peppermint, you can definitely leave them out.
Most of the time I just use regular chocolate chips in this cookie recipe, but around Christmas I like to use the red and green baking chips to make the cookies a bit more festive. These are the perfect cookies for cookie exchanges because they are so easy to make, but are a little bit more unique than just regular chocolate chip cookies.
Ingredients in Hot Cocoa Cookies
- 1-1/4 cups butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 3-1/4 cups flour
- 4 packets instant hot cocoa (NOT sugar-free) OR 1/2 cup hot cocoa mix
- 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can use the holiday variety just for fun if you’d like!)
- 1 cup Jet-Puffed Vanilla Mallow Bits
- 1 cup crushed candy canes
How to make Hot Chocolate Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350°. Beat butter and sugars in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine flour, hot cocoa mix, baking soda and baking powder in separate bowl.
- Gradually beat the dry mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips, Mallow Bits and crushed candy canes.
- Drop onto baking sheets and bake 9-11 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Since the cookies are brown to begin with, you have to be extra careful not to cook them too long!
How to crush candy canes
How to make the BEST hot chocolate cookies
After trying out multiple chocolate chip cookie recipes over many years, I have picked up several important tips for making the absolute BEST hot cocoa cookies.
- Make sure that you have enough flour in the dough. If the dough is too sticky, you may need to add a little bit of flour.
- Spend a little extra time when you mix the butter and sugars. Creaming them together for 2-3 minutes will improve the consistency of your cookies.
- Also, spend extra time mixing once you have added the eggs and vanilla. Another 2-3 minutes is usually perfect!
- Preheat the oven. This will help your cookies turn out right every time!
- Use a cookie scoop! If you want all your cookies to be perfectly shaped and have them all be the same size, a cookie scoop is the way to go.
- Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Doing this will make it really easy to remove the cookies from your cookie sheet so that you don’t have to scrape them off the pan – they will just slide right off in perfect shape!
- Don’t over bake the cookies – when I take mine out of the oven, they still look slightly under baked but they will continue to bake on the cookie sheet for a couple more minutes so that’s ok!
HOT COCOA COOKIES
Ingredients
- 1-1/4 cups butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 3-1/4 cups flour
- 4 packets instant hot cocoa NOT sugar-free (OR 1/2 cup hot cocoa mix)
- 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips you can use the holiday variety just for fun if you'd like!1 cup Jet-Puffed Vanilla Mallow Bits
- 1 cup crushed candy canes
- 1 cup JetPuffed Mallow Bits
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Beat butter and sugars in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine flour, hot cocoa mix, baking soda and baking powder in separate bowl.
- Gradually beat the dry mixture into the butter mixture until well blended.
- Gradually beat the dry mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips, Mallow Bits and crushed candy canes.
- Drop onto baking sheets and bake 9-11 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
- ENJOY! (How can you not?!)
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Hot Cocoa Cookie troubleshooting tips
Over the years, I have had many cookie failures along with all of my successes and I have learned a few things along the way! You may have a favorite cookie recipe that you love, but they don’t always turn out perfectly. Why?! Here are some helpful tips for some common cookie problems!
Why are my cookies flat?
If your cookies are flat and spread out too much while baking, you may need to add a little bit more flour. Start by just adding a few tablespoons of flour to the batter and see if that is enough to help the shape of your cookies. If you are using a recipe with butter, make sure you aren’t melting the butter. There are a few cookie recipes that actually call for melted butter, but most of them just require the butter to be softened to room temperature. Which leads to the next question…
How do you soften butter to room temperature?
The best way to soften butter is to set it out for a few hours before you make your cookies. Since most of us (or maybe just me!) aren’t that prepared or don’t think that far in advance, there are a few tricks to softening butter perfectly in just a matter of minutes. My favorite way to soften butter is in the microwave. It’s definitely fast, but you do have to be very careful not to melt it. Just put the whole stick of butter in the microwave (as long as it isn’t wrapped in foil!) and microwave for about 6-7 seconds. If the butter is still really cold, try another 5-7 seconds and check it again. You may need a few intervals, and if the butter is starting to feel soft, you can shorten the final interval to just a few seconds to make sure it doesn’t start melting.
I actually prefer to use the defrost setting on my microwave – I don’t know exactly what that mode does differently, and it takes a little bit longer (closer to 30 seconds), but it seems to be easier to get the butter to soften without melting.
Why are my cookies crispy and hard?
If your cookies are hard, crunchy or crispy, you probably baked them too long. Cookies will continue to bake for a couple of minutes on the hot cookie sheet even after you remove them from the oven, so you don’t want to wait until they are golden brown before taking them out! My husband really likes a few cookies to be a little more well-done so that he can dip them in milk, so I usually make half a tray of cookies for him that get cooked a couple minutes longer.
Most of my cookies are baked until barely done. I don’t even wait for the tops to start turning golden brown, but look at the edges on the bottom of the cookies. If the edges look like they are turning a little bit golden brown, they’re done! You don’t want the centers of the cookies to look doughy, but they shouldn’t be even slightly brown on top either.
Why do my cookies burn on the bottom but aren’t done in the middle?
If your cookies are always burning on the bottom, it is probably a cookie sheet issue! If you are using really dark cookie sheets, the bottoms of your baked goods will tend to burn before they are actually cooked all the way through. If you use a lot of cooking spray, the same result can happen. I prefer to use lighter colored non-stick pans so that I don’t have to use cooking spray at all. As mentioned above, I have been converted to silicone baking mats over the last couple of years and I love how easy it is for cookies to come off the tray – no sticking ever!
Looking for more holiday recipes? Try these other Christmas dessert recipes:
Marianne Jensen says
What size cocoa packets?
Jessica says
They’re .73 oz envelopes Marianne!
Suzy says
This is my kind of cookie! Love the hot cocoa flavor and I would totally add the peppermint too!
Beth says
These are the perfect holiday cookie! The mini marshmallows are a fun look! I’m going to love serving these at my cookie exchange!
rose says
Are mallow bits the same as mini marshmallows?
Nellie says
No, the Mallow bits are really tiny and a little bit crunchy – they are similar to the ones that come in the individual hot chocolate packets. You can buy a container of them in the baking aisle, they are usually near the marshmallows. You can use mini marshmallows, but those are tricky in cookies because they melt so much and cause the cookies to spread more and stick, so the little Mallow bits work better!
Michelle Sharrett says
Could I substitute with the cocoa that has marshmallows?? Im having zero luck finding the mallow bits!
Nellie says
Sounds like a great idea to me!
Madison says
Hi! Do you use salted or unsalted butter? Also, can I put the dough in the fridge to chill before I bake them?
Nellie says
I always use salted butter, but unsalted works too! And yes, you can put the dough in the fridge to chill prior to baking them.