Halloween Monster cookies are cute treats to make for your next Halloween party. Chewy chocolate cookies are filled with butterscotch chips and decorated with sprinkles and eyeballs to resemble monsters.
Heather's summary
Flavor/texture: Chewy chocolate cookies are filled with sweet butterscotch chips and coated in sprinkles, candies, and eyeballs to resemble cute Halloween monsters.
Chill time: 1 hour
Yield: 42 cookies
Similar to: Halloween Cut Out Cookies and Black Cat Cookies
Jump to:
Ingredients and substitutions
- Wet ingredients - Butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla extract. These ingredients add moisture and flavor to your cookies. Reducing, omitting, or substituting these ingredients can cause cookies to change in texture and flavor. Unsalted butter and the listed salt can be substituted with salted butter.
- Dry ingredients - All-purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Flour adds structure and balances with the wet ingredients. I haven't tested this recipe with other types of flours. Natural cocoa powder cannot be substituted with Dutch cocoa, this will result in a flat cookie that doesn't rise properly.
- Mix-ins - Butterscotch chips add pockets of sweetness throughout the cookies. They can be omitted or substituted with other baking chips if desired. Peanut butter chips or milk chocolate chips are great options.
- Sprinkles - Jimmies, nonpareils, candy eyeballs, and M&M's candies make great decorations for monster cookies.
How to make monster cookies
- Cream together butter and sugar, then beat in eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
- Stir in half of your dry ingredients, then milk, then the other half of your dry ingredients. Stir in butterscotch chips.
- Portion refrigerated dough using a medium cookie scoop. Roll in sprinkles and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Decorate as desired.
- Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes or until cookies begin to crack on top and look set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before serving.
Heather's Top Tip
For accurate results every time, use a kitchen scale to measure flour by weight. If you don't have a kitchen scale, use the spoon and level method. Stir the flour (especially if it's been packed down in a bag/container), then gently spoon into the measuring cup, leveling off the top with a knife. Scooping with a measuring cup compacts flour into the cup and adds up to 25% extra to the recipe, resulting in dry, bland cookies that don't spread properly.
Tips and tricks
Use room temperature ingredients - Room temperature ingredients incorporate evenly throughout the dough and cream together with the sugar to create an emulsion. This traps air in the dough, which adds lift while baking.
Parchment - Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat instead of greasing a cookie sheet. Grease or butter on a cookie sheet will cause your cookies to spread more than they should.
Add decorations before baking - Roll dough balls in sprinkles and apply decorations before baking. Sprinkles and eyeballs won't stick to cookies after they come out of the oven.
Decoration ideas - Candy eyeballs are a great addition. M&M's candies can look like warts or spots. Chocolate chips look like horns. Jimmies or nonpareils in Halloween colors are great for covering the bodies of your monsters. Pretzel sticks make great arms and legs!
Frequently asked questions
Candy eyeballs can be found at your local grocery store in the baking aisle, at your local craft store, or on Amazon:
- Wilton Edible Candy Eyeballs, 0.88 oz
- Wilton Assorted Candy Eyeballs Set, 3-Packs
Cookies will keep for 5-7 days in a sealed container. To help keep cookies fresh, you can place a slice of bread in the container with the cookies. Replace the bread slice as needed.
Yes, raw cookie dough will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days.
Recommended
📖 Recipe
Halloween Monster Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup (160 g) brown sugar
- ½ cup (99 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups (300 g) all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup (63 g) natural cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 11 ounces (311 g) butterscotch chips
- ½ cup (100 g) jimmies sprinkles
- candy eyeballs, m&ms, and chocolate chips, optional, as decoration
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream together until light and fluffy, about a minute.
- Add eggs and vanilla extract. Beat until creamed and fluffy, about a minute.
- In a separate bowl, add flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Whisk to remove clumps.
- Stir half of dry ingredients into butter mixture and stir until combined. Add milk and stir to combine. Add remaining dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated (do not overmix).
- Add butterscotch chips and stir to incorporate.
- Cover bowl or wrap dough in wax paper. Chill for 1 hour (up to 24 hours) in the refrigerator. Refrigerating helps the flavors meld and also creates a firmer dough to roll into balls.
- Preheat oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (do not grease your cookie sheet, this causes the cookies to spread more). Set aside.
- Remove dough from refrigerator. Scoop dough using a medium 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop or shape by hand into 1.5 inch balls. Roll balls in sprinkles and place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Decorate with candy eyeballs and M&M's candies (or other decorations you have on hand).
- Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until cookies begin to crack on top and look set. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Equipment Recommendations
Notes
- Storage: Cookies will keep for 5-7 days in a sealed container. To help keep cookies fresh, you can place a slice of bread in the container with the cookies. Replace the bread slice as needed.
- Dough storage: Raw cookie dough will keep in the refrigerator for 3 days. Cookie dough balls (and baked cookies) freeze well, up to 3 months in a sealed plastic container or freezer bag. Allow frozen balls to thaw for up to 10 minutes on the baking sheet before baking, or add 1-2 minutes to the baking time.
- Mix-ins: Butterscotch chips can be substituted with white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, or peanut butter chips.
- Decoration ideas: Candy eyeballs, chocolate chips (horns or fangs), broken pretzel pieces (arms and legs), M&M's candies (warts or spots), jimmies or nonpareils to cover the 'body' of the monster.
- Cookie tips: Be sure to check out my 10 tips for baking cookies, based on reader comments and questions!
These are delicious, I used peanut butter chips rather than butterscotch. Fun to be creative with the toppings.
You don’t have anywhere in the instructions about adding the butterscotch chips
Hi Michelle, thank you for noticing! This has been fixed.