Rich, dark and chewy chocolate crinkle cookies with enticing notes of roasted hazelnuts and a gorgeous fudgy centre. These festive treats make one of the best edible Christmas gifts you can give – or receive. They look good, taste delicious and keep remarkably well.

Christmas just isn’t Christmas unless I’ve made at least one batch of biscuits to package up into gifts. So now it’s full 0n Christmas cookie time. These chocolate crinkle cookies are just fabulous. Crackly on the outside and soft and unctuous in the middle with the occasional nubble of roasted hazelnut. What more could you ask for?
These crinkle cookies were a Christmas gift bake that I made last year. They were so good, I meant to make them again this year. But flu got in the way and my Christmas baking was minimal. However, I’ve made them several times subsequently and they are just as good as I remembered them. You can find my coffee and cardamom version further down the post.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
I bookmarked this recipe from Apple & Spice a very long time ago. The biscuits are made with ground roasted hazelnuts which immediately grabbed my attention. However, the first time I made them for Christmas 2012, I was fast running out of time and space in the kitchen, so swapped the hazelnuts for ground almonds.
They were really good and proved to be highly popular with the recipients. But the fragrance and flavour of these ones, which are made with freshly roasted hazelnuts, beat the ground almonds hands down.

There is a phenomenal amount of sugar in this recipe. That’s probably one of the reasons the cookies keep so well. But I’ve used a bit less than most recipes I’ve come across to no ill effect, either in flavour or keeping qualities.
If you want your house to smell fragrant and irresistible, then I urge you to bake these chocolate crinkle cookies. First you get the aroma of roasting hazelnuts which fills the air most delightfully. After that, you get a fuller richer scent whilst the cookies are baking.

You need to roll these cookies in icing sugar before baking. This makes them visually striking once baked and conjures up scenes of snowy Christmases with sleigh bells ringing. The biscuits expand and crack, revealing dark crevices beneath the white icing.
Rich, indulgent, chewy and delicious these are some of the best biscuits I’ve ever made. I’d thought they were set to be a regular feature on my Christmas baking schedule, so I’m quite sorry I didn’t manage to make any this year.
Coffee Cardamom and Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Coffee, cardamom and chocolate is a favourite combination of mine. Below, you can see some of my recipes which feature this particular combination.

To make this flavour version of these fabulous crackly cookies, follow the recipe below. Only omit the vanilla extract and optional mesquite powder. Instead add half a teaspoon of ground cardamom and dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee granules in the two tablespoonfuls of milk.
Other Coffee, Cardamom & Chocolate Recipes You Might Like
- Coffee cardamom chocolate mousse cake
- Coffee chocolate chip cookies with cardamom
- Wholemeal spelt pancakes with coffee cardamom chocolate sauce
For more edible Christmas gift inspiration, why not take a look at my gifts category? And if it’s just cookies you’re interested in, you’ll find heaps of recipes in my biscuits category.
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these chocolate crinkle cookies, with or without the coffee and cardamom, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies. PIN IT.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies – The Recipe
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 80 g whole hazelnuts
- 175 g dark chocolate (72%)
- 100 g unsalted butter – cubed
- 275 g dark muscovado sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 330 g wholemeal spelt flour
- 20 g cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- large pinch of fine sea or rock salt
- 1 heaped tsp mesquite powder (optional)
- 2 tbsp milk
- 100 g icing sugar
Instructions
Roasting Hazelnuts
- Roast the hazelnuts at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) on a lipped baking tray for about ten minutes in order to give flavour and loosen their skins. They should be golden, but not in any way burnt.
- Rub in a piece of kitchen towel or in a clean tea towel to remove the skins.
- Leave to cool, then blitz in a coffee mill or food processor with 30g caster sugar and reduce to a fine (ish) crumb. The sugar helps to stop the ground nuts clumping together.
Cookie Dough
- Melt the chocolate in a large bowl placed over a pan of hot, but not boiling water.
- Add the butter, leave for a couple of minutes then stir until melted.
- Beat in the sugar, followed by the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and mesquite powder, if using.
- Add the ground hazelnuts and milk, then stir until combined.
- Leave in a cool place to firm up for a couple of hours.
Forming the Cookies
- Sift the icing sugar into a flattish bowl.
- Wet hands with cold water and roll the cookie mixture into walnut sized balls between the palms of your hands.
- Roll the balls in icing sugar until thickly coated and place well apart on lined baking trays.
- Bake at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for about 12 minutes until cracked and well risen.
- Turn out onto a wire rack to cool and get the next batch on, until the dough is all used up.
Notes
Nutrition
Sharing
I’m sending a bag of these chocolate crinkle cookies with roasted hazelnuts off to Jac at Tinned Tomatoes as it is a Bookmarked Recipe.
Post updated December 2019.
These cookies look so delicious. They look very festive with their snowy crinkled tops!
Chocolate crinkle cookies are my favourite festive bake.
Your cookies looks absolutely delicious, chocolate and hazelnut belong together and the crackle effect is so pretty!
Thanks Kat. I’m with you on the chocolate and hazelnut combination – so very good.
Perfect little treats for the time of year. I sympathise with your lack of Christmas baking due to illness – same here. Happy new year.
Sorry to hear that Phil. Hope all is well now and Happy New Year to you too 🙂
Wow! They look awesome! I have never tried them before but they looks so tempting!
These are truly awesome Sylvia – just wish I’d had time to make some this year.
Corrrrrrr, yes please Choclette! Are you both feeling tip top again now? I do hope so, it’s a crappy time of the year to be poorly.
Janie x
Thanks Janie – tip top now 🙂
They are so pretty Choclette. Thanks for ending them over to Bookmarked Recipes. I hope you are feeling better now. There is nothing worse than feeling rotten at Christmas.
Thanks Jac. Feeling much better now. Christmas was pretty much a right off for us this year, but in some ways it was good to have an enforced rest.
I love the crackled finish, they look really professional. Ground hazelnuts sound like a great cookie addition a bit of a change from ground almonds.
Janice, it’s worth it for the smell of roasting hazelnuts alone 😉
I have these bookmarked too! They still look as beautiful and I still need to make them.
Oh Kate, you so do!
I love these cookies! Have a great new year
They are fabulous Katie, thank you so much for the recipe. Wishing you a very Happy New Year too.
Oh man, do I ever love those cookies! Wahoo!
Haha Susan, you’re a woman after my own heart 😉
Beautiful cookies.
Happy New Year. Catherine
Thank you Catherine. Wishing you a very Happy New Year too.
Crackles are more than just for holidays, right? They look awesome!
Well quite possibly Angie, but they are a bit addictive, so …
These look and sound great, have Pinned for future reference!
Thanks Jenny – let me know how it goes when you try them out.
I love the sound of these and they look very pretty with their dusting of icing sugar. I have some hazelnuts kicking around the back of my baking cupboard so may have to give this recipe a go.
Thanks Jo, do give them a go, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Aaaah crackles!!!!
I love them. I made a similar recipe a while ago and it was awesome, I´ll try your´s out too!
Thanks Paola – I’m really looking forward to making them again – they are ace 😉