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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
Want to make cute baked goods but don’t the time of patience for complicated steps? Try these delicious gingersnaps! The adorable decoration requires minimal patience to assemble and uses simple ingredients.
Once you’ve indulged your creative side, try making some Gumdrop Cookies and Christmas Biscotti to add to the holiday cookie stash. Maybe try this decoration process on some other cookies, like these Chocolate Sugar Cookies.
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This is a fairly easy recipe but will require some patience.
- Total Time: Baking and assembling these adorable cookies will take approximately 40 minutes plus 8-12 hours of resting time for the dough.
- Variations: Try using some chocolate with peppermint in it for your assembly, or use different coloured sprinkles. Add a pinch of crystalized ginger or finishing sugar to add a glittery element. Use some colourful mini candy canes instead of standard ones. You could also use your favourite sugar cookies as the base for these mugs of cocoa.
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl and hand mixer, a small bowl, a whisk, a rolling pin, a cookie cutter, one or two large baking sheets, parchment paper, and plastic wrap.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Cookies: This recipe includes the recipe for classic gingersnap cookies, which are worth the effort. However, if you haven’t got the time, energy, or patience for making homemade cookies right now, you can grab a pack of gingersnaps from the store. Or try making these adorable cups of hot cocoa using a sugar cookie for the base.
Marshmallows: Since the marshmallows are going to be your mugs, this is one of the times when you need to stick to the basics. Large marshmallows. Not jumbo and not miniature. If you find large coloured or flavoured marshmallows, those could work too.
Candy: You’ll need mini candy canes to make the mug “handles”, chocolate to hold things together, and some tiny ball sprinkles to sprinkle on top of your mugs of cocoa. Chocolate melts, specifically designed to be melted and then solidify nicely, will work best for this recipe. They’re usually by the icings and sprinkles in the baking aisle, but if you can’t find any, chocolate chips should work.
How To Make Cup of Hot Cocoa Cookies
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- Whisk dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
- In a large bowl (or stand mixer) beat together brown sugar, butter, and eggs on medium speed until well mixed. Add molasses, vanilla, and lemon zest. Keep mixing until blended. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture, stirring until blended and smooth.
- Divide dough into halves. Wrap each half tightly in plastic wrap and leave out at room temperature for 8-12 hours (or refrigerate for up to 4 days and give it time to return to room temp before using).
- Preheat oven to 375°F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Put one portion of cookie dough onto a lightly floured surface. Dust dough and rolling pin with some flour. Roll dough out until it’s 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut out cookies with a small cookie cutter and arrange them on the lined baking sheet, 1.5 inches apart. Bake for 7-10 minutes.
- Repeat steps 6 and 7 with the second half of the dough. Let cookies cool on pans until firm, and then switch over to cooling racks.
- When cookies are fully cooled, put a small dot of the white melted chocolate in the center of each cookie. Set a marshmallow on top of each of those dots, flat side down.
- Attach the candy cane handles to each marshmallow mug using the melted white chocolate as glue. Then, add the melted milk chocolate to the top of each marshmallow and sprinkle on a pinch of tiny white sprinkles.
- Let the chocolate harden before serving the cookies.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Cup of Hot Cocoa Cookies
Easy Assembly: When it comes time to assemble these little mugs of hot cocoa, try giving the melted chocolate a few seconds to harden after each step. Baking melts tend to harden quickly, but you need it sturdy enough to keep the marshmallows and candy canes in place. You could also pre-assemble your little mugs while the cookies are cooling, and then “glue” on each completed mug.
Making it Even Easier: While fresh, homemade gingersnaps are obviously going to taste the best, don’t let lack of time and energy stop you from having fun with this recipe. You can make these little mugs of cocoa and plop them on to any cookie as a base. Try a sturdy sugar cookie, or a little circle of gingerbread, or maybe even a graham cracker.
Step it Up: On the other hand, if you have the time and the energy, try making these even fancier! Make a batch of Double Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies or Classic Chocolate Crinkle Cookies to use as your cookie base.
Storage Instructions
Pre-decoration, these gingersnaps can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for several days, or frozen for several months. Freezing the assembled cookies might get a bit iffy, unless you handle them very carefully.
More Delicious Cookie Recipes
The holiday fun doesn’t have to end! Try some of these other easy cookie recipes: Spice Cookies are full of warmth and perfect for chilly days.
Make some of these Crispy Mint Chocolate Cookies or Eggnog Cookies to get a bite of classic holiday season flavours.
For even more ideas, check out the Christmas Cookies category.
There you go, everyone. An adorable and easy holiday cookie to make with your kids. Try these out and let me know what you think.
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
A Cup of Hot Cocoa Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 ¾ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¾ cup dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup molasses
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 36 Large marshmallows
- 36 Small candy canes cut at the base of where it curves to form a perfect “u”
- 1 cup White chocolate melts
- 1 cup Milk chocolate melts
- 1 container Tiny round white sprinkles
- Small flower cookie cutter
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves until well blended.
- In a large bowl beat butter, brown sugar, and egg on medium speed until well blended.
- Add molasses, vanilla, and lemon zest and continue to mix until well blended.
- Gradually stir in dry ingredients until blended and smooth.
- Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic and let stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours or up to 8 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 deg. Prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper and set aside.
- (Dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, but in this case it should be refrigerated. Return to room temp before using.)
- Place 1 portion of the dough on a lightly floured surface.
- Sprinkle flour over dough and rolling pin.
- Roll dough to a scant 1/4-inch thick.
- Use additional flour to avoid sticking.
- Cut out cookies with the small cookie cutter.
- Space cookies 1 1/2-inches apart.
- Bake 1 sheet at a time for 7-10 minutes
- Remove cookie sheet from oven and allow the cookies to stand until the cookies are firm enough to move to a wire rack.
- Once cooled…begin decorating
- Put a small dot of melted white chocolate on the cookies centre and attach the marshmallow.
- Add the handle by adding the candy cane to the side of the marshmallow with the same white chocolate.
- On top of the marshmallow add the melted milk chocolate and add a few white sprinkles to the top for the marshmallow effect.
- Let harden and serve
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Debra Douglas Kapeluck says
Sheri, for the little girls \U0001f384