For Day 5 of Cookie Week we’re making: marshmallow stuffed hot cocoa cookies!!
Quite possibly the most exciting cookies, ever.
We’re making a dark, intensely chocolatey cookie dough, then putting a full-sized marshmallow right inside. They get baked for just six minutes (!!) , drizzled with lots of extra melted chocolate, and are guaranteed to bring extra holiday cheer to your kitchen.
They’re super simple to make, and so, so fun to eat. Plus, this recipe yields a smaller batch of just 8 cookies, perfect for making a variety of different holiday cookies and not finding yourself with more cookies than you can eat before they go bad!
Let me show you!
cookie dough ingredients
The base of these cookies couldn’t be simpler. We’re mixing together:
olive oil
coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
egg
vanilla
cocoa powder
all purpose or whole wheat flour (I love baking with this flour)
baking powder, and salt.
Everything gets measured into a bowl, stirred together, and two minutes later, you’re halfway to cookie town.
The dough is intentionally made with oil, so it’s easy to roll out between your hands without sticking.
It’s also very subtly sweet, to help balance the sweetness level of the marshmallows.
all-natural marshmallows work best
I always recommend buying the highest quality/most natural ingredients you can find, but in the case of the marshmallows in this recipe, it’s absolutely essential.
Regular store bought marshmallows (aka Kraft’s Jet-Puffed or other store brands) are typically made with corn syrup, food coloring (which doesn’t even makes sense because they’re white?!) artificial flavors, gelatin, and some other funky ingredients I literally would have to google to know what they are.
But, it’s not even the fact that they’re made with such low quality ingredients that’s the issue here. The problem is that regular marshmallows melt into a puddle of goo when you bake them.
For these cookies, we want a marshmallow that holds its shape. So, we’re going all-natural.
I find these marshmallows at most big name grocery stores (look in the natural food section if you can’t find them by the regular ‘mallows). I suspect the Trader Joes’ brand of marshmallows are really just these as well, since their ingredients are identical and they perform the same when baked.
Bonus: all-natural marshmallows tend to be vegan/gluten-free/kosher, etc!
how to stuff the cookies
It’s actually quite simple to get a marshmallow in the center of a cookie!
First, you’ll scoop out 8 balls of cookie dough onto a sheet pan and flatten each one so it’s slightly larger than a marshmallow, then sit a ‘mallow on top of each.
The remaining cookie dough will be scooped directly into your hand, and flattened to form little cookie-dough-blankets that cover each marshmallow.
Then, you’ll simply pick up each ball of marshmallow-covered dough, roll it between your palms to ensure everything is sealed nicely, and bake!
Literally 6 minutes in the oven, and they’re done.
All that’s left to do is melt some chocolate, generously drizzle each cookie, and eat.
These cookies are so fun to make and eat; I seriously can’t get over how plump and cute they are. The combination of rich chocolate cookie + soft sweet marshmallow + melted chocolate really does elicit some hot cocoa vibes. It’s not just a marshmallow stuffed chocolate cookie, it’s a hot cocoa cookie. And I love it.
Feel free to be completely extra and serve them with homemade hot chocolate; I mean, if we’re doing it, we might as well commit to it, right?
If you make these cookies, be sure to let me know what you think! Leave a comment below, or take a picture of your marshmallow stuffed hot cocoa cookies and share it with me on Instagram so I can see!!
Marshmallow Stuffed Hot Cocoa Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3/4 cup coconut sugar can sub brown sugar or sucanat
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup all-purpose or white whole wheat flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 8 large marshmallows all-natural, such as Dandies brand
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Whisk together the oil, sugar, and egg in a large bowl. Add cocoa powder, flour, baking powder + soda, and salt, and mix well to combine.
- Divide the dough into 16 (approx. 2-Tablespoon sized) balls and place 8 of them onto the sheet pan. I use a small cookie scoop to make them all even, but you could also divide the dough in half, then divide each half into 8 to ensure you will have 16 evenly sized balls of dough!
- Press the 8 dough balls on the sheet pan down to flatten slightly, making them slightly larger than the size of your marshmallows. Sit a marshmallow on top of each.
- Use the remaining 8 balls of dough to cover the marshmallows. I like to flatten each ball of dough in my palm until its about 3 inches across, then lay it over each marshmallow.
- When all cookies are covered, pick each one up and roll between your palms, squishing and pressing to make sure cookie dough completely covers the marshmallows.
- Bake cookies for 6-7 minutes, or until dough on top looks set. Note: DO NOT OVERBAKE as the cookies will become dry and crumbly- we're really only cooking a thin layer of dough on the top and bottom, as it's just marshmallow in the center, so they will not need more than 7 minutes.
- Let cookies cool for 10 minutes on the pan, then heat chocolate chips and coconut oil (in the microwave in 10 second increments, or in a very small pot on the stove over the lowest possible heat) until melted. Drizzle each cookie with a spoonful of chocolate.
- Eat cookies immediately, while still warm and messy, or let cool compltely and store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.