Easy Cookie Dough Fudge

Name: Cookie Dough Fudge
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 5 min
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 2 cups white chocolate chips ((I like to use Ghirardelli brand)); 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk; 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter (cut into 6 pieces); ½ cup light or dark brown sugar (firmly packed (I like to use dark brown sugar)); ¾ teaspoons table salt; 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; ¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips (divided (I like to use a blend of mini and regular-sized chocolate chips))

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This quick and easy Cookie Dough Fudge comes together on the stove in just 15 minutes. It’s practically foolproof, perfectly sweetened, and uses no eggs or raw flour so it’s safe to eat! Recipe includes a how-to video.

square of cookie dough fudge missing one bite among other fudge squares

We are officially in the final few days before Christmas. If you’re celebrating, are you ready? Have you finished all of your shopping? Decorated your tree? Baked all of your desserts? I hope you said “no” to that last question, because I’ve got one final (super easy!) dessert for you that you don’t want to overlook. It’s the *perfect* mashup of my edible cookie dough and easy fudge recipe: my cookie dough fudge!

Cookie dough fudge has all the classic cookie dough flavors (butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, chocolate chips) and the deliciously decadent texture of fudge. It’s the ideal recipe for a quick last-minute dessert, especially since there’s no actual baking required.

This recipe takes just 15 minutes to prepare on the stove and only a few hours to set up, so you can have firm, flavorful fudge in no time, any time of year.

Let’s get cooking!

What You Need

overhead view of ingredients for cookie dough fudge

Most of these ingredients are pretty basic, but there’s one you really need to pay attention to. Here’s what you need:

Flour. Any all-purpose flour will work well here. You will need to heat treat it (only takes a few seconds, I’ll show you how to do this quickly in the microwave!) and sift it before you use it to avoid the risk of any illness from raw flour.
White chocolate chips. Use a good quality white chocolate chip, I like Ghirardelli.
Sweetened condensed milk. One of the biggest mistakes people make with this fudge is using evaporated milk instead of sweetened condensed milk (a big problem I’ve seen people run into with my cake batter fudge). Evaporated milk is sold right beside sweetened condensed milk, and while they look similar, your fudge will not set up properly if this is used.
Butter. This adds to the creaminess of the fudge as well as to the classic cookie dough taste. Use unsalted butter, or your fudge will turn out too salty.
Brown sugar. You can use either light or dark brown sugar; I generally prefer dark brown sugar, which makes the fudge slightly sweeter, richer and darker in color (so closer in line with what cookie dough actually looks like!).
Vanilla extract. Like brown sugar, vanilla extract is a key cookie dough flavor. We’ll add a good amount here to make sure the flavor really shines.
Salt. To balance the sweetness of this fudge, we’ll add some salt. Table salt works fine here!
Semisweet chocolate chips. I like to use a blend of mini and regular semisweet chips. I like to use semisweet because not only is this what is most commonly used in chocolate chip cookies, but the semi-sweet part helps counter some of the sweetness of the fudge.

SAM’S TIP: Since some flours have been found to be contaminated with E.coli, I recommend you heat treat your flour. Heat treating the flour may seem like an unnecessary step since we are cooking the fudge, but it doesn’t get quite hot enough to kill bacteria while it’s on the stovetop. To eradicate any risk, I like to first heat treat my flour in the microwave, which takes seconds. You can also heat it in the oven, which is what I do with my cookie dough bites and cookie dough buttercream. Flour can be prone to clumping after heat-treating, so I always sift it into the fudge to remove any lumps.

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!

collage of 6 images showing how to make cookie dough fudge (steps detailed below)

Microwave your flour in 10 second increments until it exceeds 160F. Set aside.
Combine your white chocolate chips, condensed milk, butter, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Heat this over medium-low heat until everything is melted and smooth.
Reduce your heat to low and sift the flour into the pan. Stir to combine.
Quickly add ½ cup of your semisweet chocolate chips and stir briefly, but not too much. You don’t want to melt your chips!
Pour the fudge into your prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
Top the fudge with more semisweet chocolate chips. Let it sit at room temperature until it is set, usually 2-4 hours, but it could take longer. Slice and enjoy!

SAM’S TIP: For beautiful chocolate swirls and fudge that actually looks like cookie dough, don’t over-mix the fudge after adding your chocolate chips! The chocolate chips begin to melt instantly, and if you over-mix, you will have a fudge that just looks like chocolate. While there’s nothing wrong with chocolate cookie dough, we want distinct pops of chocolate chips! If you’re worried about doing this, you can always pour half of your fudge into the pan, add ½ cup of chocolate chips over the half, then add the remaining fudge and gently swirl the layers together, then top with remaining chocolate chips.

square piece of cookie dough fudge topped with mini chocolate chips among other fudge squares

Frequently Asked Questions

My fudge won’t set. What’s wrong with it?

If you’ve waited more than a few hours and your fudge is still liquidy, there’s a good chance an ingredient was mis-measured or a substitute was made (you didn’t accidentally use evaporated milk instead of condensed, did you?).

My fudge is all brown without discernable chips. Why did this happen?

When you add your semisweet chocolate chips, you need to be very quick and deliberate so they don’t melt into your fudge. This will happen fast, so you need to mix and get the fudge in the pan before everything blends together.

Do I have to heat treat my flour?

I mean, I’m not your mother, but I highly recommend you take the extra few seconds for this important step. Raw flour can transmit foodborne illness, so if you don’t want to risk getting sick, take the few seconds to microwave your flour before using it!

overhead view of cookie dough fudge squares decorated with mini chocolate chips

Enjoy!

Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook

Comments

Aaron A

September 01, 2023 at 12:23 am

This turned out great, even though I forgot the vanilla extract. Gritty like cookie dough. Even has that nutty raw flour taste. Make sure your flour does reach 165° to kill bacteria. It’s addictive people. Especially with a little sea salt on top.

Mary

March 21, 2023 at 4:43 am

Adding this to my list of things I wanna make! I was wondering—do you think adding nuts would work with this recipe? If so, about how much should be added? Thank you!

- Sam
  
  March 23, 2023 at 11:27 am
  
  Hi Mary! You can definitely add some nuts. Stir in half a cup at the end, or if you want more nuts, reduce the chips a little and add some more. You can eyeball this and adjust it as you like. 🙂
  
Ally

January 04, 2023 at 12:01 am

Are the sugar crystals supposed to completely melt in step 3? Because on med-low they just… don’t. I’m making this for the first time and worried about gritty fudge. Nothing worse than gritty fudge…

- Sam
  
  January 04, 2023 at 12:00 pm
  
  Hi Ally! They’ll melt some but they are not supposed to melt completely. In fact, if they do, the fudge could be a bit greasy. Just as real cookie dough has sugar crystal texture, so does this fudge in order to taste and feel like cookie dough.