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Made with a devil’s food cake mix, Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are soft, slightly chewy, and ideal for making with your kids this holiday season.
Alright, friends. We’re in the home stretch.
These little cake mix cookies are just the ticket when you need to make a last minute party dessert or gift. They whip up easily and taste so darn good!
I love how chewy these Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are, and you can customize them by adding flavors to the batter if you want. A little peppermint extract would be wonderful here (probably about 1/2 a teaspoon, if you decide to do it).
I’ve made these cookies for years, and we took them to several holiday parties this year. They’re a hit, whether it’s a school party, office potluck, or the proverbial ugly Christmas sweater party.
I love how these cookies look when fully baked. There’s some chemistry magic happening to make the powdered sugar with crackles and crinkles throughout look so pretty. You’re going to love them!
WHAT ARE CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES?
Have you ever had Chocolate Crinkle Cookies?
The dough for these chocolate cookies is rolled into balls, then coated in powdered sugar before baking. As they bake, the outside creates a crinkled appearance from the powdered sugar.
The best thing about Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, though, is how embarrassingly easy they are to make. That’s because they’re made with a cake mix!
If you like making Doctored Cake Mix, Pumpkin Crunch Cake or Caramel Apple Poke Cake, you’ll love this cake mix recipe as well!
HOW TO MAKE CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES FROM CAKE MIX
Because the base of this recipe is a devil’s food cake mix, you only need 5 ingredients to make these cookies:
- Devil’s food cake mix
- Eggs
- Vegetable oil
- Vanilla
- Powdered sugar (aka confectioners’ sugar)
Since they’re so simple to make, these are actually a great cookie for kids to make by themselves (aside from using the oven).
I use a mixer to mix together the dough – simply mix everything except the powdered sugar – but you could mix this dough by hand as well.
Once the dough is mixed, scoop balls of the dough and roll them in the powdered sugar before baking.
The cookies are done when the bottoms are set but the middles still appear slightly undercooked. It’s important not to overbake these cookies to keep that chewy texture!
CAN CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES BE FROZEN?
These Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are actually best fresh out of the oven, though they can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
While you probably can freeze them, I would not necessarily recommend it, as I don’t think the texture would be quite the same after freezing.
CRINKLE COOKIE VARIATIONS
There are lots of ways you could change up your Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
For example, try adding a little peppermint extract to make chocolate peppermint cookies, or a bit of coffee extract for a mocha flavor.
You could even add a little orange zest to this batter!
I have also made these cookies with different flavors of cake mix. For example, using a lemon cake mix results in a delicious, chewy lemon cookie.
The sky’s the limit with these crinkle cookies! However you choose to make them, you’ll love how quickly you can quell a cookie craving with this recipe.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 boz Devil’s Food Cake Mix 15.25 ounces
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup confectioners' sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, combine cake mix, eggs, oil, and vanilla extract until well blended. Place confectioners’ sugar into a medium bowl.
- Using a medium cookie scoop (1 ½ tablespoons), drop balls of dough (dough will be sticky) into the confectioners’ sugar, roll to coat. Gently form dough into a ball by lightly rolling between your palms.
- Place dough balls on prepared baking pan about two inches apart.
- Bake in preheated oven for 7 to 9 minutes. The bottoms will be set but middles will look slightly undercooked. Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on pan before removing to a wire rack.
Notes
- These cookies are best served fresh out of the oven; however, they will keep in an airtight container for 2 days.
- Doctor up these cookies even more by playing with different extracts and add ins. I think a little orange zest would be a great addition, or try adding in a little mint extract for easy Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles.
- This base recipe does work well with other box flavor varieties, I have tried it with lemon cake mix which resulted in delicious, chewy lemon cookies.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
i know these are best the first day made but would freezing them work?
Desiree-
I have never frozen these cookies, but I’m betting they’ll be just fine. Happy Holidays!
Jamie
I make the lemon cookie recipe all the time…I send cookies to our military sometimes twice a month…the lemon cookies have been all over the world to My Navy boys and they love, love, love them….they travel well too, sometimes 4-6 weeks to reach the ship!!!
I made this recipe for a Labor Day BBQ at our house this past weekend and it was a huge hit. No one guessed that they were from boxed cake mix! Everyone said how fudgy, moist and chewy they were. One guest even asked for a glass of milk to go with his cookie!
Would these cookies work if you skipped the coating of powdered sugar? Or would it make them stick to the pan or something like that? I’m looking for a simple recipe to make with a spice cake mix, but I want to top them with cream cheese frosting!
Lauren–
Thanks for visiting. They are realllly sticky, so I am not sure how this will work. Best of luck!
–Jamie
Thanks for the tip! I’ll try both and see how it goes.
FYI, I made this recipe with a boxed spice cake mix, orange zest, orange extract, and dried cranberries. I skipped the powdered sugar step, and even though the dough was sticky, it made delicious cookies. Thanks for the great recipe!
I love crinkle cookies. mine always seem to have a lot of powdered sugar on them haha.
Just wanted to let you know….that I can commiserate with you regarding the rain. I live in Louisville, KY….and it has been raining nearly every day for the past two weeks!!! I know they say that April showers bring May flowers….but this is crazy!!! However, this lovely recipe does indeed look like a wonderful “pick me up”…..just the thing to satisfy my chocolate craving and also my love of recipes that aren’t too hard or time consuming. My daughter comes home from college this week (YA-HOOOOO!!) and I can’t wait to bake these together with her!! As always, thank you for sharing your wonderful indeas and personal thoughts~ Rain, rain, go away, bring me a chocolate cookie to stay! :)
This looks perfect! I usually buy chocolate crinkles on store and it is so oversweet. I think this recipe will help me to make my own taste of sweet chocolate crinkles.
Is it ok to use a different brand of food cake mix? I’m just wondering since I already have a cake mix here.
I am sure it will be just fine.
-Jamie
Just the photo makes my mouth water! Love these!
I made these last night – ridiculously easy and incredibly delicious!!! Thanks for posting this!!! :D