Fun, delicious, and easy to make, these Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies will be a hit with any crowd! You just need one bowl and about 30 minutes to enjoy these chocolaty cookies. Adored by kids and adults - you need to bring these to any Halloween parties this spooky season!
Yield:
11 to 13 cookies
Prep Time:15minutes
Cook:12minutes
Tessa's Recipe Rundown...
Taste: Mild chocolate flavor to let those mix-ins really shine. Texture: The cookie is ultra soft and chewy with blissful crunches from the Halloween M&Ms and googly candy eyes. Ease: SO easy to make. Pros: The cutest (yet easiest!) Halloween cookie recipe. Cons: None. Would I make this again? Yes, these are the perfect Halloween dessert.
Festive and easy, these Halloween Cookies are an absolute must-make for your friends and family for a spooky movie night at home or for the Halloween block party!
No tricks here, just a delicious treat! These cookies are filled with orange, purple, white, and green M&Ms (the seasonal “Ghoul Mix” M&M bags) for the most adorable Halloween cookies. We even added edible googly eyes to some of the cookies to create perfect monster cookies! How cute are they?!
They’re so easy to make, too. No crazy decorating with royal icing required! Plus, these are so fun to get the kids involved with baking up a spooky treat together.
If you make these for your Halloween party, you might want to make a double batch. They go fast! 😉
These are one of my favorite Halloween treats to make each year, and I hope you love this recipe as much as I do (and the guests who have enjoyed them off my dessert table too!).
How to Make Halloween Cookies
Ingredients for Easy Halloween Cookies:
All-purpose flour –measured correctly! If you add too much flour, you may end up with tough cookies that don’t spread, or cookies that taste bland!
Black Cocoa powder or Dutch-process cocoa powder –Black cocoa can be ordered online and will provide that festive deep dark color. It also makes the cookies taste more like Oreos! If you can’t find Black cocoa, feel free to use Dutch-process cocoa powder instead. Learn more about Dutch-process cocoa here.
Baking soda & baking powder – check out my Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder article to learn about the surprising differences between these two leaveners!
Cornstarch – to keep the consistency of these cookies soft and tender.
Salt – enhances the flavor.
Granulated sugar and light brown sugar – for sweetness, moisture, and flavor.
Butter – always use unsalted butter in baking, at a cool room temperature (around 67°F is perfect).
1 egg – at room temperature.
Vanilla extract – for flavor.
White chocolate chips & Halloween-themed M&Ms – for flavor, and to bring a super fun Halloween-y flair to our cookies!
What type of Cocoa Powder to use for Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies?
I recommend using Black Cocoa for the best visual effect and for a tasty flavor (think Oreos – not super rich in chocolaty flavor, but a distinct flavor nonetheless). It can be difficult to source in stores but can be purchased easily online. Alternatively, you can also use Dutch-process cocoa. My favorite brands of Dutch-process cocoa powder are E. Guittard, Penzeys, Bensdorp, or Valrhona. Regardless of cocoa type, be sure to sift it to avoid clumps of cocoa in your cookies!
How to Make Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies:
Cream the butter and sugars. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add the vanilla and egg. Scrape the bowl down before adding in the vanilla extract and the room temperature egg, beating well to combine.
Combine the dry ingredients. Sift together the flour, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Gradually add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until a slightly sticky dough forms.
Add the chocolate. Fold in the white chocolate chips and M&Ms with a rubber spatula.
Portion out the cookies and decorate. Using a large spring-loaded scoop, drop 3-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Dot the balls of cookie dough with extra chips, M&Ms, and candy eyeballs.
Bake. At 350°F for about 12 minutes, until puffy but still soft, being careful not to overbake.
Allow to cool slightly on the baking tray. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Can I Change up the Mix-Ins?
Yes! You can absolutely switch out the white chocolate chips and Halloween-themed M&Ms for just about whatever you like! Just be sure to keep the total weight (or volume) the same as written in the recipe as well as using similarly sized mix-ins so the cookie dough balls stay together. Here are some Halloween cookie mix-in ideas:
Dark chocolate chips
Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Reese’s Pieces
Well chopped candy bars
How to store Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies:
These are best enjoyed when fresh, but they will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Be sure they are completely cooled before storing. See right below for my top cookie storage tips!
How to Keep Cookies Soft:
To keep your baked cookies soft, you can add an apple wedge, piece of bread, or a tortilla on the top and bottom of the cookies to the container a day or two after baking them, or whenever you find the texture beginning to harden. The moisture from the bread or apple will migrate to your cookies, making them soft and chewy again. A tortilla is a favorite of mine because it takes up much less room than a slice of bread and doesn’t transfer any flavors or aromas like an apple wedge can.
Alternatively, you can freeze the cookie dough so you can just bake off what you need, then store the rest in the freezer until you next crave fresh chocolaty cookies! Read more below!
Can you Freeze Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies?
I love the taste of cookies straight from the oven the best (who doesn’t!?). I always keep pre-scooped balls of various types of cookie dough in a resealable bag in my freezer, so I can bake cookies off and have them warm from the oven in a matter of minutes whenever I want! Here are more tips for freezing cookie dough, and baking from frozen!
Fun, delicious, and easy to make, these Double Chocolate Halloween Cookies will be a hit with any crowd! You just need one bowl and about 30 minutes to enjoy these chocolaty cookies. Adored by kids and adults - you need to bring these to any Halloween parties this spooky season!
Ingredients
1/2cup(113 grams) unsalted butter,at cool room temperature
1/2cup(100 grams) granulated sugar
1/4cup(50 grams) brown sugar
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1egg, at room temperature
1cup(127 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2cup(43 grams) Dutch-process or Black cocoa powder,sifted
1tablespooncornstarch
1teaspoonfine sea salt
1/2teaspoonbaking soda
1/4teaspoonbaking powder
1/2cup(85 grams) white chocolate chips,plus more for garnish
1cup(218 grams) Halloween M&MS,plus more for garnish
Edible candy eyeballs,for garnish
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl down before adding in the vanilla extract and egg, beating well to combine.
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Gradually add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until a slightly sticky dough forms. Fold in the white chocolate chips and M&Ms with a rubber spatula.
Using a large spring-loaded scoop, drop 3-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 2 inches apart. Dot the balls of cookie dough with extra chips, M&Ms, and candy eyeballs. Bake for about 12 minutes, until puffy but still soft, being careful not to overbake. Allow to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe Video
Course :
Dessert
Cuisine :
American
Keyword :
halloween cookie recipe, halloween cookies
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
About Tessa...
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
I made these for a Halloween party and one guest asked who made the cookies. When I told him I did, he said they were the best chocolate cookie he’s ever had! Normally, he’s disappointed by chocolate cookies because they are dry and don’t taste much like chocolate, but he was very impressed with these! They have been a hit with my husband and everyone who ate them at the party. Super easy to make and super tasty! Thank you!
Yes, i made this for halloween, I also make a variation of this recipe that’s always a hit. I do change it a bit as I add a teaspoon of Cayenne pepper which raises it to whole other level!! Yum!!
Made them 2 days ago. Sending to my kid in college. Kept some for us here. I thought The sea salt was too salty, but tasted another cookie 2 days later and it was so good. Not too salty at all. I will make these again.
I made this patch for my Halloween party and I can’t wait for my guests to try them too! I couldn’t find the Halloween M&Ms from the recipe so I substituted them with Reeses Pieces, and they worked wonderfully. If you want to make a simple but amazing dessert for the spooky season, THIS is it! Thank you for sharing it with us!
Hi! Three moms and I are going to make these cookies for my son’s Halloween party. I bought the black chocolate for all of us and split it for each of us, measuring by weight. It looked like quite a bit less than if I had measured by volume. I often find this to be the case – do you? I’m going to do a test run today, just in case.
Measuring by weight is the most accurate way to measure ingredients. I find measuring with volume measuring cups means you can easily compact too much flour or cocoa powder, so that’s why it may seem like less. I hope you all love these cookies!
Will these hold up if I mail them to my grandkids? I would send priority so they will take 2-3 days. What’s the best way to wrap/package them? I would also be sending cut out sugar cookies.
Hi Marlene! We haven’t tried shipping these, but typically any drop-style type of cookie ships well if packaged properly. I’d recommend wrapping your cookies bottom to bottom, wrapped in plastic. This gives the cookies an added protection and support from the cookie beneath it that can’t be beat! I’d also recommend keeping your flavors separated by wrapping them tightly in plastic wrap or small resealable bags – you don’t want all your cookies tasting the same! These cookies are best eaten within 5 days, so priority mail should be just fine. And then of course adding bubble wrap in your box to protect your cookies is important. First, place a piece of bubble wrap in the box, then layer the cookies in the box, about 4 cookies per layer (depending on the size), and bubble wrap placed between each layer. Add a final piece of bubble wrap on top, and close the lid. You can easily make the unboxing a little more fun and pretty by adding festive tissue paper on top of each layer of bubble wrap 🙂 I hope that helps!
Thanks! I usually pack them in a sturdy flat plastic container (I save them from take out orders) but an wrap them as well. And yes, of course, different kinds need to be packaged separately! Dough is made; will bake this afternoon to mail tomorrow for Monday arrival.
Very fun Halloween cookie! I doubled the recipe bc 12 cookies is not worth the time, but it still only made 19 cookies all measured exactly 3 Tbsp. I also had to manually flatten them at 10 min then baked 3 more min. delicious and cute.
Rating a 5 based on recipe itself. That said, id prob change the mixins slightly.
I really liked the raw batter (batter only), it def had that “oreo” flavor to it. I baked 11 1/2 mins at 350° & cooled 5-10mins b4 moving to a rack.
I’m not a huge white choc fan, and, for me personally, I think adding Reeses pieces or dark choc chips (in add to m&ms) would make me love them.
Even tho there isn’t a lot of white choc (only 1/4c, I think in add to the m&ms it’s a bit sweet for me.
I’m gonna make adjustments to the add ins & keep the recipe bc I think it’s a great base, so ty for posting =)
On a side note, the constant (literally) pop ups while trying to post a comment are super annoying, fwiw…
I’m trying to make these for a fundraiser. How far in advance could you make the dough, and would baking time be effected? Can you double or triple the recipe? Is there a 3 TBS scoop? Thank you!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 19, 2022 at 6:58 am
Hi Sandra! You can make these up to three days in advance, chilling the dough in the fridge, with no modifications to the bake time. Check out Tessa’s article here about how to bake from frozen, if you need to make these cookies any further in advance than that! You can definitely double this recipe – but any time you make a double or triple batch, you run the risk of accidentally missing larger quantities of ingredients (eg adding 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of 2 teaspoons, for example). Also, most mixer bowls won’t hold such a big batch of dough. So, we typically recommend simply making the single batch of dough twice or three times, rather than doubling or tripling the dough in one batch. That being said, if you want to proceed and are confident you’ll add the correct quantities of each ingredient, go for it – just be careful to mix everything thoroughly and scrape the bowl down extra, to account for the large dough batch. You can find the 3 Tablespoon cookie scoop here. I hope that helps! Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try! 🙂
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 14, 2022 at 9:40 am
Hi Jessica! We haven’t tried that, and I’m not sure how well it would work as marshmallows tend to melt and spread more than chocolate chips – but feel free to test it out and let us know how it goes! No other modifications to the recipe should be necessary 🙂
Hi Tessa… thanks for this really cool and great recipe.. I have a question, Do I have to use M&M’s (Baking Bits) ?… because i went to the store and the lady that was over there told that if I use regular M&M for baking, they would loose color and may brake… She told me I have to use the small ones (baking bites)… what do you think about it?.. thanks for listening…
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 12, 2022 at 9:24 am
Hi Dayris! We have not experienced M&Ms losing their color in cookies, and yes they can crack, but they won’t fully break – just little cracks that won’t even be super noticeable unless you’re realllllyyyyy staring at the cookie lol. You don’t have to use M&Ms, though – feel free to replace the same weight of M&Ms with a different type of chocolate chip, nut, peanut butter chip, toffee bits – whatever your heart desires! Let us know what you think once you’ve made these cookies! 🙂
OMG, these are so much fun to make. The black cocoa is perfect. I added peanut butter M&Ms as well as regular ones and that just out it over the edge. Thanks for another great cookie!
Made these today and thought they would turn out so cute! Unfortunately they almost didn’t spread at ALL! Wondering if you have any tips… all ingredients were the right temp, made sure over was calibrated properly, wasn’t over mixed, etc. (considered all the factors I know normally would cause no spreading.) thanks!
These turned out super cute. Too rich for my liking but my daughter loves them. Shared with friends, and definitely a fun Halloween treat! When Tessa says the dough is sticky, she isn’t joking! Almost like brownie batter. But they turned out just fine!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 7, 2022 at 10:59 am
Hi James! You can find them with the sprinkles in most supermarkets, Target, or Walmart – or here on Amazon! Let us know what you think once you’ve given these cookies a try 🙂
As a trained chef and cookbook author, I share trusted baking recipes your friends & family will love alongside insights into the science of sweets. I help take the luck out of baking so you *always* have delicious results! Learn more here.
Over 200 pages with 50+ cookie recipes that'll make
you a COOKIE PRO. Discover how to turn your biggest cookie flops into WINS by mastering the
sweet science of baking. Even learn how to customize your own recipes! Beautiful, hardcopy,
full color, photos of every recipe so you know EXACTLY how your cookies should look. Order
now to have the book delivered to your doorstep!
Do you want a more delicious life?
Instead of digging through cookbooks and magazines and searching the internet for amazing
recipes, subscribe to Handle the Heat to receive new recipe posts delivered straight to your
email inbox. You’ll get all the latest recipes, videos, kitchen tips and tricks AND my
*free* Cookie Customization Guide (because I am the Cookie Queen)!
I made these for a Halloween party and one guest asked who made the cookies. When I told him I did, he said they were the best chocolate cookie he’s ever had! Normally, he’s disappointed by chocolate cookies because they are dry and don’t taste much like chocolate, but he was very impressed with these! They have been a hit with my husband and everyone who ate them at the party. Super easy to make and super tasty! Thank you!
So amazing to hear this, Tiffany! So glad these were such a hit with everyone at your party! 🙂
Yes, i made this for halloween, I also make a variation of this recipe that’s always a hit. I do change it a bit as I add a teaspoon of Cayenne pepper which raises it to whole other level!! Yum!!
Ooo, what a fun tweak, Lori!!
Made them 2 days ago. Sending to my kid in college. Kept some for us here. I thought The sea salt was too salty, but tasted another cookie 2 days later and it was so good. Not too salty at all. I will make these again.
So rich and delicious!
I made this patch for my Halloween party and I can’t wait for my guests to try them too! I couldn’t find the Halloween M&Ms from the recipe so I substituted them with Reeses Pieces, and they worked wonderfully. If you want to make a simple but amazing dessert for the spooky season, THIS is it! Thank you for sharing it with us!
So thrilled to hear this!
These are perfectly delicious.
Such a simple, fun, festive and tasty recipe!
I doubled the recipe and used regular Dutch process cocoa. The cookies were fabulous! Tasty and super cute looking!!
I had to go to 3 stores to find Halloween M&M’s but Target came through!!
They’ve been hard to find this year! So glad you enjoyed this recipe, Sabrina 🙂
Hi! Three moms and I are going to make these cookies for my son’s Halloween party. I bought the black chocolate for all of us and split it for each of us, measuring by weight. It looked like quite a bit less than if I had measured by volume. I often find this to be the case – do you? I’m going to do a test run today, just in case.
Measuring by weight is the most accurate way to measure ingredients. I find measuring with volume measuring cups means you can easily compact too much flour or cocoa powder, so that’s why it may seem like less. I hope you all love these cookies!
Will these hold up if I mail them to my grandkids? I would send priority so they will take 2-3 days. What’s the best way to wrap/package them? I would also be sending cut out sugar cookies.
Hi Marlene! We haven’t tried shipping these, but typically any drop-style type of cookie ships well if packaged properly. I’d recommend wrapping your cookies bottom to bottom, wrapped in plastic. This gives the cookies an added protection and support from the cookie beneath it that can’t be beat! I’d also recommend keeping your flavors separated by wrapping them tightly in plastic wrap or small resealable bags – you don’t want all your cookies tasting the same! These cookies are best eaten within 5 days, so priority mail should be just fine. And then of course adding bubble wrap in your box to protect your cookies is important. First, place a piece of bubble wrap in the box, then layer the cookies in the box, about 4 cookies per layer (depending on the size), and bubble wrap placed between each layer. Add a final piece of bubble wrap on top, and close the lid. You can easily make the unboxing a little more fun and pretty by adding festive tissue paper on top of each layer of bubble wrap 🙂 I hope that helps!
Thanks! I usually pack them in a sturdy flat plastic container (I save them from take out orders) but an wrap them as well. And yes, of course, different kinds need to be packaged separately! Dough is made; will bake this afternoon to mail tomorrow for Monday arrival.
Very fun Halloween cookie! I doubled the recipe bc 12 cookies is not worth the time, but it still only made 19 cookies all measured exactly 3 Tbsp. I also had to manually flatten them at 10 min then baked 3 more min. delicious and cute.
So happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe, Laurie!
Rating a 5 based on recipe itself. That said, id prob change the mixins slightly.
I really liked the raw batter (batter only), it def had that “oreo” flavor to it. I baked 11 1/2 mins at 350° & cooled 5-10mins b4 moving to a rack.
I’m not a huge white choc fan, and, for me personally, I think adding Reeses pieces or dark choc chips (in add to m&ms) would make me love them.
Even tho there isn’t a lot of white choc (only 1/4c, I think in add to the m&ms it’s a bit sweet for me.
I’m gonna make adjustments to the add ins & keep the recipe bc I think it’s a great base, so ty for posting =)
On a side note, the constant (literally) pop ups while trying to post a comment are super annoying, fwiw…
I’m trying to make these for a fundraiser. How far in advance could you make the dough, and would baking time be effected? Can you double or triple the recipe? Is there a 3 TBS scoop? Thank you!
Hi Sandra! You can make these up to three days in advance, chilling the dough in the fridge, with no modifications to the bake time. Check out Tessa’s article here about how to bake from frozen, if you need to make these cookies any further in advance than that! You can definitely double this recipe – but any time you make a double or triple batch, you run the risk of accidentally missing larger quantities of ingredients (eg adding 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of 2 teaspoons, for example). Also, most mixer bowls won’t hold such a big batch of dough. So, we typically recommend simply making the single batch of dough twice or three times, rather than doubling or tripling the dough in one batch. That being said, if you want to proceed and are confident you’ll add the correct quantities of each ingredient, go for it – just be careful to mix everything thoroughly and scrape the bowl down extra, to account for the large dough batch. You can find the 3 Tablespoon cookie scoop here. I hope that helps! Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try! 🙂
Hi Tessa, can I swap the white chocolate chips for mini-marshmallows? Do I need to change anything else about the recipe to do this? Thank you!
Hi Jessica! We haven’t tried that, and I’m not sure how well it would work as marshmallows tend to melt and spread more than chocolate chips – but feel free to test it out and let us know how it goes! No other modifications to the recipe should be necessary 🙂
Hi Tessa… thanks for this really cool and great recipe.. I have a question, Do I have to use M&M’s (Baking Bits) ?… because i went to the store and the lady that was over there told that if I use regular M&M for baking, they would loose color and may brake… She told me I have to use the small ones (baking bites)… what do you think about it?.. thanks for listening…
Hi Dayris! We have not experienced M&Ms losing their color in cookies, and yes they can crack, but they won’t fully break – just little cracks that won’t even be super noticeable unless you’re realllllyyyyy staring at the cookie lol. You don’t have to use M&Ms, though – feel free to replace the same weight of M&Ms with a different type of chocolate chip, nut, peanut butter chip, toffee bits – whatever your heart desires! Let us know what you think once you’ve made these cookies! 🙂
OMG, these are so much fun to make. The black cocoa is perfect. I added peanut butter M&Ms as well as regular ones and that just out it over the edge. Thanks for another great cookie!
Made these today and thought they would turn out so cute! Unfortunately they almost didn’t spread at ALL! Wondering if you have any tips… all ingredients were the right temp, made sure over was calibrated properly, wasn’t over mixed, etc. (considered all the factors I know normally would cause no spreading.) thanks!
Hi Anon! It sounds like there may have been too much flour and/or cocoa in your cookies. How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure flour/sugar/etc and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here! I also want to mention your leavening agent. If your baking/soda powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly or spread the way they should. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here! I hope something here helped! Let us know if you need any further help troubleshooting!
These turned out super cute. Too rich for my liking but my daughter loves them. Shared with friends, and definitely a fun Halloween treat! When Tessa says the dough is sticky, she isn’t joking! Almost like brownie batter. But they turned out just fine!
where do you recommend getting the candy eyes?
Hi James! You can find them with the sprinkles in most supermarkets, Target, or Walmart – or here on Amazon! Let us know what you think once you’ve given these cookies a try 🙂
I found the candy eyes at Safeway!laurie
Do you not chill the dough for this recipe?
Hi Eesha! You absolutely can chill these, but it’s not vital. Let us know what you think once you’ve given these a try 🙂