Christmas keeps drawing nearer and nearer, and my kitchen just keeps on pumping out cookies. My latest are these ridiculously chocolatey Hot Cocoa Cookies! I have had the idea for chocolate cookies with some sort of marshmallow-y component for forever, but as usual, I normally have more ideas than time and when the time comes, the season is wrong. These babies are deeply chocolatey and undeniably fudgy, with a generous, gooey dollop of marshmallow creme in the center, and drizzled with melted dark chocolate for good measure.
As I was brainstorming, I decided to go back into my archives and re-dig up my recipe for Dark Chocolate Toffee Cookies, which I then ended up using as the base for these cookies! It's really the perfect recipe for ridiculously chocolatey, soft cookies, and I really should make them more often. They're great topped with chocolate and toffee, and marshmallows, but I'm sure they'd be just as delicious by themselves. Who couldn't use a good cocoa cookie recipe in their life, anyway?
Something I've found consistently strange {and very funny} in all my years living in the US, is that the hot cocoa here is runny, and the chocolate milk is thick. In Italy {and most of Europe, as far as I know}, milk chocolate is really just chocolate-flavored milk, but hot cocoa is really more of a hot chocolate drink, thick and ridiculously rich. Think almost like... the consistency of stove-top pudding before it thickens completely. It's basically a meal in of itself, and I have fond childhood memories of Christmas breaks spent in the mountains and enjoying a big cup of hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream after a long day. I will have to share that recipe sometime! In the meantime, you can check out my Fancy Hot Chocolate which is pretty great, too. 🙂
hot cocoa cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cups white granulated sugar
- 1 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cups all-purpose flour
- ⅓ unsweetened dark cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- one 7oz jar marshmallow creme
- 1 cup chocolate chips melted for drizzle
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
- Add in the eggs, mixing until fully incorporated, then mix in the vanilla. Add in the cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, and mix. Then, add in the flour, and mix again.
- If the dough seems too runny, refrigerate it for 30-60 minutes. Otherwise, you are ready to go! Line 2 baking sheets with parchment/silicone, and scoop tablespoonfuls of dough onto them at 12 per sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, until cookies appear slightly dry on top. They will seem soft, but should set upon cooling.
- Before they cool off completely, make an indentation in the center of each cookie using your thumb.
- Spoon a bit of marshmallow creme in the center of each cookie, then drizzle with the melted chocolate. Let the chocolate set before enoying!
Jess @ Flying on Jess Fuel says
Don't you just love Christmas cookie season?? It's my favorite!! These ones sound so delicious! Love that you used marshmallow fluff in these... that's what we always put in our hot chocolate as kids!