These Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies are bold and rich, spiced with chili powder and cinnamon, and topped with gooey, melted marshmallows. The perfect winter time treat that will remind you of steaming mugs of hot cocoa!
What we love about these mexican hot chocolate cookies…
- No chill time required: this recipe is simple to follow and the dough doesn’t require any time to chill to bake up soft without spreading too much.
- Flavors: these cookies have a deep chocolate flavoring thanks to using dark cocoa powder. Plus there’s a warmth and depth to them with the combination of cinnamon and chili powder. The perfect amount of chili powder gives a subtle warmth without being overpowering.
- Textures: the cookies bake up soft with crackly tops. They don’t spread too much, so they bake up giving us a thicker cookie. Adding the marshmallows for the last couple of minutes of baking gives a gooey topping that balances nicely with the crispy outside of the cookie.
Ingredients:
Ingredient Notes:
- Flour: this recipe was tested using all purpose flour.
- Light Brown Sugar: this helps keep the cookies moist and tender.
- Dark Cocoa Powder: dark cocoa gives a boost to the chocolate flavor of the cookies, I use Hershey’s Dark Cocoa, but you can use any DARK cocoa powder.
- Cayenne: only a small amount is used, these cookies are not spicy. Feel free to adjust the amount called for as needed.
- Baking Powder: this is used as the leavener in this recipe due to using Dutch Processed cocoa.
How to Make (step-by-step):
- Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add in the egg and vanilla, mix this until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet, this includes: flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, cayenne, salt, and baking powder. Continue to mix this until dough is combined, may look crumbly, which is fine, don’t overmix.
- Add the chocolate chips into the cookie dough and mix together with a wooden spoon, this will bring the dough together.
- Using a cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto a prepared baking sheet, bake for 8 minutes, remove and top with the marshmallows, then continue baking another 2 minutes.
Tips:
- Texture: after mixing the dry ingredients into the wet, you may find the dough seems somewhat crumbly, this is fine, as you fold the chocolate chips into the dough it will come together and resemble cookie dough.
- Forming cookie dough for baking: use a cookie scoop to ensure equal portions of dough for even cooking, place the scoops onto the baking sheet then press together with your fingers and form the dough up into a taller round shape. This helps the cookies bake into nice round circles.
- Toasted Marshmallows: baking the marshmallows melts them but doesn’t toast them, if you have a kitchen torch this would be the easiest way to toast them for additional flavoring.
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies: FAQ
For this particular recipe this would not be a good substitute. The dark cocoa powder is a dutch processed cocoa and reacts a particular way when baked due to the ph balance. This is why we use baking powder and not baking soda. Hot chocolate powders use natural cocoa powders which have a different ph balance. Making a straight swap in this recipe will alter the way the cookies bake.
When comparing Natural cocoa powder with hot chocolate mix there are still some differences. Cocoa powder is made from cocoa beans, while hot chocolate mix has other ingredients added including milk powder and sweeteners.
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If you tried this recipe please leave a comment and a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating below! Thank you so much!
Photography by @KJandCompany.co