Hot Cocoa Cookies

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These easy bite-size fudgy chocolate cookies start with a boxed cake mix and are topped with a gooey marshmallow and a swirl of dark chocolate buttercream.

Today is a SUPER FUN day on my site, as I’m participating in a little blog hop called Freaky Friday! Michaela from An Affair From The Heart put together this event where one blogger makes a recipe from another assigned blogger’s site.

And this month, it’s a virtual cookie exchange! Bring on ALL the cookies!

What I love about these Freaky Friday events is that I usually get connected with food bloggers I had never “met” before. This time around, however things are a little different, and I got paired with my DEAR friend Rebecca from Devour Dinner.

But here’s the thing… I actually got paired with her new (as of this year) site, Best Cookie Recipes. And let me tell you, friends… Rebecca has worked her tush off this year after deciding on a whim to start a new site in February. She launched her site in May and it’s been so fun to watch her absolutely crush it, set ridiculously crazy goals, and reach so many of them.

I am first and foremost proud to be her friend but also proud to be alongside her in this crazy job we have as food bloggers. And also really excited to dive into her JAM PACKED cookie recipe collection.

I actually had a really hard time picking what cookie to make from her site, but I ultimately landed on these hot cocoa cookies because they weren’t something I had on my site yet and I’d actually never made a cookie that started with a boxed cake mix, so I was super intrigued.

Other contenders for my cookie of choice were these eggnog cookies, these snickerdoodle sandwich cookies (you know I love me a good snickerdoodle!), and these soft almond sugar cookies will be making an appearance in my kitchen at some point just for funsies because YUM.

Oh, and if you need a Thanksgiving cookie, she’s your girl. These pumpkin pie sugar cookies went bananas on Facebook and LOOK HOW CUTE.

Ok ok, enough other cookie talk, let’s talk about this hot cocoa cookie recipe, because it’s so good and so quick and so simple, you’re going to want to make them ASAP!

Use the rest of the cake mix to make a bigger batch, or to make standard size cookies. See notes in the recipe card about doing this.

To the box mix, you’ll only need to add an egg and some vegetable oil.

We’re not making these marshmallows from scratch or anything like that, so you just have to purchase some of the large size marshmallows. You’ll cut each of these in half so that one marshmallow can top two cookies.

Make sure to cute them in half lying on their side and not sitting on their flat bottoms.

Of course, there’s no problem with cutting the marshmallows while the cookies bake, but as soon as my cookies go in the oven, I almost always forget what I’m supposed to be doing and that little beep of the timer is what brings me back to reality (mom brain? Food blogger brain? I don’t know, but can you relate?!).

Then, using a mini cookie scoop, drop balls of dough onto a prepared baking sheet.

These cookie dough balls won’t spread too much, so you can fit 18 of them on one sheet.

These 4 minutes will partially bake the cookies, and they will still look mostly like a dough ball and less like a flatter cookie. This is ok, and we’ll take care of the shape of the cookie by adding the marshmallow.

Pressing down gently will insure the marshmallow adheres to the center of each cookie and also flatten the tops of the cookies so they look more like a cookie than a ball.

In the oven, the melted marshmallow will puff up significantly and your cookies will look crazy! This is ok. The marshmallows will deflate as they cool.

By the time I got my gooey, chewy cookies out of the oven and made the frosting, the cookies were ready for their final touch: the dark chocolate buttercream.

Beat the butter, add the dry ingredients, then thin it out with the milk.

You’re looking for a consistency you can easily pipe but that isn’t too runny. Use the milk to get the consistency you prefer, and then pipe a little swirl on top of each cooled, gooey marshmallow.

I liked using a star tip like Rebecca did, but you can use whatever you have or prefer to get that swirl done.

Since that marshmallow on top is so gooey and melted and then topped with chocolate buttercream, you’ll want to keep your perfect cookies, well, perfect, so do not stack them to store them.

If you’re planning to use these for a holiday cookie exchange, my best tip is to layer them between parchment or wax paper if you have to stack them.

Ideally, you don’t stack them at all, but if you do, just be sure to keep them from sticking together. Stacking would only squish them down, so if that doesn’t matter to you, go for it.

These wound up being perfectly bite-sized, so really, squishing them down would just make it easier to eat anyway!

I hope you’ll add this hot chocolate cookie recipe to your collection, and if you’re looking for more cake mix cookie recipes, check out Rebecca’s extensive collection. And if you’re into them, she has a great collection of copycat cookie recipes (think Crumbl, Swig, Starbuck’s, Gideon’s).