Dark Chocolate Halloween Sugar Cookies
Super easy to make, dark chocolate Halloween sugar cookies are a spook-tacular treat – no tricks! Full of dark chocolate, they taste somewhere in between a sugar cookie, chocolate cake, and brownie. Basically, they are super amazing!
These easy chocolate sugar cookies are really simple to mix together with simple ingredients. The star being dark cocoa powder, but you can always use natural cocoa powder if you can’t find the dark.
Decorating them is also super easy with a 2-ingredient icing that you can drizzle over top of your cookies.
They are perfect for Halloween parties and they freeze great, too!
Ingredients
For the full list of ingredients, complete with recipe quantities, please see the recipe box below.
- Dark cocoa powder: Here I used Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder to make these cookies. You can also use Dutch cocoa powder or even black cocoa powder. If you can’t find any of those, using natural unprocessed cocoa powder will also give you chocolate cookies, they just won’t be as dark.
- Powdered sugar: I prefer to make sugar cookies with powdered sugar over granulated sugar. The cookies turn out softer, chewier, and with a better flavor! Plus, the bit of cornstarch in the powdered sugar helps to hold the cookies together since these are egg free.
- Cream of Tartar: Using cream of tartar helps to prevent the sugar from crystalizing in the cookies while baking, making for softer and more delicate cookies !
Instructions
Make sure to check out the recipe card below for the full recipe and ingredient list.
Making these cookies is pretty simple, especially if you’ve made sugar cookies before. The biggest difference is that you roll the cookie dough out in cocoa powder. This way you still get the non-stick ability to roll out the dough, but they don’t turn white from the flour.
This dough is VERY soft, so if you find that it’s unworkable, you can pop it in the fridge for a few minutes to allow the dough to get a little colder. However, you want to make sure that you roll the cookies out before chilling the dough, otherwise the cookies will be too difficult to work with.
- Make the dough. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or a large bowl with a hand mixer, whip together the vegan butter and powdered sugar until it’s smooth. Add the remaining wet ingredients of milk, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Mix again until it’s combined. Finally, add the dry ingredients all at once, the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. The dough will be soft and light looking.
- Roll out the cookies. Using cocoa powder to help, roll out the cookies to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut them out and lift the dough away before placing the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet. Depending on the size of your cookies, you can get 9 to 15 cookies per tray.
- Chill the cookies. After you roll and cut them out, place the cookies on the trays in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. Now you can preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
- Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes depending on the size of cookies you made. Remove them from the oven and let them cool on the cookie tray for 15 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.
Icing
For these cookies, I like to keep it simple with an easy glaze icing. I LOVE this icing because you don’t need anything fancy to mix it together. The thicker you make it, the more detailed you can get with the decorating. If you want to go super easy, you can make it a little thinner and simply dip the cookie tops in the frosting and cover in sprinkles. How easy is that?!
For these, I mixed 1 cup of powdered sugar with between 1 1/2 and 2 tablespoons of room temperature water. I placed it in a piping bag and snipped off a tiny tip to decorate.
But you can always get fancy with your decorating and use something like a vegan vanilla buttercream frosting!
Top Tips for Cut Out Cookies
- The dough is SOFT so be careful and gentle while making these cookies. If the dough becomes too soft to work with, pop the dough in the fridge for 5 minutes to allow the butters to firm up slightly.
- Don’t wiggle the cookie cutter back and forth. That seals the edges of the cookies and prevents them from baking up tall in the oven. A single firm press down and back up will give you the best results.
- Using cocoa powder is messier than flour, but it bakes into the dark chocolate cookies better.
- Roll the cookies right onto parchment paper or a silicone baking mat so that you can easily transfer them to the fridge.
How to Store
Countertop: Store the fully baked, cooled, and decorated cookies in an airtight container on the countertop for about 5 days.
Freezer: Store the fully baked and cooled and decorated cookies in a freezer safe container for up to 3 months. To freeze them without ruining the decorations, place them all on a cookie sheet in a single layer and freeze for one hour until frozen solid. Then, place them in your container with pieces of wax paper or parchment paper in between each layer to keep them safe. Allow them to thaw on the countertop for an hour before enjoying after freezing.
Halloween Recipes
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Equipment
- Mixing bowls and spoons
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Hand mixer or stand mixer
- parchment paper
- baking trays
- Rolling Pin
- cookie cutters
- Piping bags, optional
Ingredients
Halloween Cookies
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 cup vegan butter
- 1/4 cup dairy free milk soy milk recommended
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
- 2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the softened vegan butter with the powdered sugar. Mix until smooth. Add the remaining wet ingredients of plant based milk, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Mix until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients. Now into the same bowl, add the dry ingredients all at once of the all purpose flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Mix until the dough forms, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary to combine everything.
- Roll and shape the cookies. Scoop out a quarter of the dough and roll out onto cocoa powder dusted countertop or on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll to about a 1/4-inch thickness. Tap the cookie cutter into extra cocoa powder before cutting out each cookie. I find it works best to cut out all the cookies and then remove the excess dough before using a spatula to gently place them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. If the dough is too soft to work with, roll it out into a sheet and place into the fridge for 5 to 10 minutes to firm up again before cutting the cookies out. Repeat until no cookie dough remains.
- Chill. Chill the cut out cookies on their baking trays in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Make sure the oven racks are in the center of the oven.
- Bake. Place the chilled cookie sheets into the oven and bake for 11 to 14 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie shapes you’ve used. For me, these were 3 1/2-inch cookies and they took 13 minutes. Bake one cookie tray at a time for best results. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool for 15 minutes on the hot tray before removing them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before decorating.
- Decorate. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and water. Transfer to a piping bag and cut a small tip. Decorate the cookies any way you like. The more stiff the icing, the more detailed you can get in decorating. Or, you can make the icing more drippy and dip the cookies before adding sprinkles. There is no wrong way to decorate these cookies. Let them set and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
More Cookie Recipes
Vegan cookies for every occasion! From classic vegan chocolate chip cookies to sugar cookies perfect for the holidays, these cookies are easy to make and always super delicious.
