Coal Cookies

Name: Coal Cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 14 min
Total time: 84 min
Ingredients: 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter (softened); 1 cup powdered sugar; ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract; ⅛ teaspoon table salt; 1 cup unsalted butter (softened); 1 ½ cups granulated sugar; 2 large eggs (room temperature preferred); 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract; 3 ½ cups cake flour ((see note)); ⅔ cup black cocoa powder ((see note)); 2 teaspoons baking powder; ¾ teaspoons table salt

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These delectable coal cookies will have you wanting to be on Santa’s naughty list! Made with black cocoa and a smooth buttercream center, they taste like gourmet Oreos. Recipe includes a how-to video!

Christmas Coal Cookies

Switch things up on Santa and give HIM coal this year! These coal cookies are unique and tasty, if not particularly pretty, cookies that you need to try this Christmas season. They make fun (and cheeky!) cookies for Santa, but can also be a sweeter way to give your kids coal for Christmas 😉

Despite their… let’s call it “rustic” appearance, these cookies actually taste incredible. I like to think of them as soft and tender, gourmet deluxe Oreos. They are made with black cocoa (just like my homemade Oreo cookies!) and filled with a not-too-sweet vanilla frosting.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easy: While there are a few steps, each one is straightforward and easy. We’ll simply whip together the buttercream, make the dough, assemble, and bake.
Unique: They’ll stand out among your usual Christmas cookie suspects like gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, and thumbprint cookies. I have a few more unique Christmas cookies at the bottom of this post too.
Tasty: The combination of cocoa and vanilla buttercream is familiar and oh so irresistible. If you are a fan of anything Oreo (like my Oreo pie!), you will love these cookies!
Fun: Like my dirt cookies, coal cookies are a fun treat that kids from one to 92 will enjoy. Everyone will be wanting coal for Christmas this year!

Ingredients

There are a few important ingredients I’d like to go over before we get started. If you want to head straight to the recipe instead, keep scrolling!

Black cocoa powder. You really need black cocoa for this recipe (I linked to the one I use in the recipe card!). Don’t substitute a different cocoa powder (like natural or Dutch process cocoa), or your cookies will look more like manure than coal (sorry!).
Cake flour. Cake flour makes for thicker, more tender cookies. I use it in many of my gourmet cookie recipes that require more structure to hold in their for fillings, like my strawberry pop tart cookies or chocolate lava cookies.
Unsalted butter. You will need this for both the filling and the cookies. Make sure your butter is properly softened before you begin. Note that if you only have salted butter, you will need to reduce the salt in the dough to ¼ teaspoon and remove it entirely from the filling.
Eggs. Only two today. Use my trick to quickly bring eggs to room temperature if you forget to set yours out ahead of time!
Vanilla. This flavors both our cookies and the buttercream filling. For the filling, you can use regular vanilla extract (homemade vanilla works great!) or clear vanilla. Clear vanilla will give you a more pure white filling and artificial flavor though, which is actually closer to what an Oreo (or Ding Dong cake) filling tastes like.

SAM’S TIP: For a peppermint twist, add some peppermint extract to the filling! I recommend using ¼-½ teaspoon in addition to the vanilla.

Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How to Make Coal Cookies

Overhead view of dollops of buttercream frosting being dropped on a wax paper lined baking sheet.

Make the filling

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until smooth, then gradually stir in the sugar until incorporated. Do this on low speed so you don’t fling sugar everywhere (ask me how I know 🙄).

Add in the vanilla and salt, scrape the bowl, and mix one more time. Give yourself a taste-test as a reward. Drop 2 teaspoon-sized scoops unto a wax paper lined baking sheet (I have a 2-teaspoon cookie scoop (affiliate) that makes quick, tidy work of this!) and pop in the freezer to chill for at least 20 minutes. While the dollops freeze, make your dough.

Overhead view of a bowl of cookie dough made with black cocoa.

Make the dough

Creaming the sugar and butter until light and fluffy is important, you want to spend a few minutes (1-3) with your mixer on high speed to properly cream things. This will help make sure the cookies maintain the height and structure that we’re aiming for.

Keep in mind this is a pretty thick, stiff dough (it needs to be in order for them to maintain their shape and hold in that filling!). Make sure you add the dry ingredients to the wet gradually, otherwise it won’t incorporate properly and you’ll be leaving me a comment asking me why the dough is so dry and crumbly and you can’t work with it. 😉 Just go slow and keep on mixing!

Hand pressing a frozen dollop of buttercream frosting into a black cocoa cookie dough.

Assemble the cookies

You’ll want to use hefty 3 Tablespoon portions of dough. Roll these into smooth balls, then make an indent in the center with your thumb. Add a frozen buttercream dollop to the indent and form the dough around it so no filling shows through.

Roll the dough between your palms again until smooth. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling, then place in the freezer to chill for 30 minutes. This chilling period is important so that the cookies don’t spread too much and maintain their coal-ish figure.

Overhead view of six cookies made with black cocoa on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake

Bake for 10-12 minutes. It can be tricky to tell when a cookie this dark is finished baking, but you don’t want to overdo it! The edges should be set and it’s totally fine (if not desirable!) if the centers still seem a tad underdone (this ensures they stay nice and soft, and remember that the filling doesn’t actually need to cook so it’s not like they have to actually cook through!).

These cookies are pretty fragile when they are still warm, so don’t try to move them (or eat them!) until they have had time to cool.

You’ll also want to wait until they’ve cooled completely before you break into them, not only will the filling seem separated and oily (and be super hot!) when warm, but the cookies themselves might seem underdone.

Two halves of a coal cookie made with black cocoa cookie dough and a buttercream frosting filling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use all-purpose flour instead?

You can, but it’s not my preference. Your cookies just won’t be quite as tender. The best substitute I’ve found is actually to use a blend of all-purpose flour and cornstarch, use 3 cups (375 grams) of flour and 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch.

I can’t find black cocoa! Will this recipe work with a different kind?

This recipe will technically work just fine with any Dutch cocoa (since black cocoa is a Dutch processed cocoa!), but the color won’t be near as dark. As a result, the cookies look a bit less like coal and a bit more like something even more unappetizing 😉 Stick with the recipe for best results!
I usually can’t find black cocoa in my grocery store, so I buy my black cocoa here on Amazon (affiliate).

Do coal cookies need to be refrigerated?

No. The amount of sugar in the buttercream stabilizes the butter, so the cookies don’t need refrigeration. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature and enjoy within four days.