Chocolate Pudding Cookies

Chocolate Pudding Cookies are thick, intensely chocolatey, and stay soft for days thanks to instant pudding mix. Four sources of chocolate give every bite serious depth.

These cookies came out of a simple question: what happens when you put melted chocolate, pudding mix, and brown sugar all in the same dough? The answer turned out to be the most aggressively chocolate cookie I have made, and I mean that as a compliment.

If you love a deeply fudgy cookie, these chocolate pudding cookies belong in your regular rotation alongside my double chocolate chip cookies and these chocolate biscottis, which take a slightly different approach to layering chocolate flavor.

Ingredients & Substitutions

• Semi-Sweet Chocolate: Melted chocolate is the foundation of the fudgy chew. Let it cool until just slightly warm before adding it to the creamed butter so it does not break the emulsion or melt the fat.
• Unsalted Butter
• Light Brown Sugar
• Eggs: Eggs bind the dough and set the structure during baking. Use room-temperature eggs, so they incorporate evenly into the creamed mixture and keep the dough smooth.
• Vanilla Extract
• All-Purpose Flour
• Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix: This is the single most important ingredient in the recipe. The pudding mix pulls in moisture and holds it in the crumb long after baking, creating an ultra-soft, almost brownie-like interior, while its starches help set that texture without drying it out. Use a 3.5-ounce box of instant pudding, specifically not cook-and-serve, and Hershey’s Special Dark deepens both the color and the chocolate intensity in a way that a standard mix does not replicate.
• Cocoa Powder: Cocoa supercharges the chocolate flavor without adding extra sugar or fat. Sift it if it is lumpy so it disperses evenly and does not create bitter pockets. I always prefer Dutch processes, but use what you have on hand.
• Baking Powder
• Kosher Salt
• Bittersweet Chocolate Chips: Bittersweet chips create pockets of molten chocolate that stay slightly soft even after the cookies cool. Their higher cacao percentage keeps the overall sweetness in check and contrasts nicely with the softer, sweeter dough.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on These Chocolate Pudding Cookies

• Change the chocolate. You can swap the bittersweet chocolate with semi-sweet, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or even white chocolate!
• Add some nuts. You can add toasted walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts to the dough for a nice crunch. If you like hazelnut and chocolate, you should try these Nutella cookies next!
• Swap pudding flavor. Try vanilla or even butterscotch pudding for a different twist on the base dough. This same method works beautifully for pistachio pudding cookies!
• Make them double-sized. Roll larger dough balls and bake 1–2 minutes longer for bakery-style cookies. For a thicker, oversized version, you might also love my bakery style chocolate chip cookies!

Professional Tips

• Cool the melted chocolate before adding it. Hot chocolate added to creamed butter will melt the fat and break the emulsion, leaving you with a greasy, dense dough. Let it cool until it is just barely warm to the touch before folding it in.
• Do not overmix once the flour goes in. Stop the mixer the moment the dry ingredients disappear. Overmixed dough develops excess gluten, and these cookies will bake up tough and cakey instead of dense and fudgy.
• Chill the dough for at least 3 hours. Skipping or shortening this step is the most common reason these cookies spread thin. The cold dough holds its shape in the oven long enough for the structure to set before the fat melts. If you need a faster option, see the frozen dough variation above.

How to Make Quadruple Chocolate Pudding Cookies

Use these instructions to make the perfect chocolate pudding cookie every time! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

Step 1: Whisk the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, baking powder, chocolate pudding mix, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until evenly distributed.

Step 2: Cream the butter and sugar. Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until the mixture is light, pale, and noticeably fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Step 3: Add the eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat to combine. The mixture may look curdled or broken at this point, which is completely normal. It will come back together once the flour mixture goes in.

Step 4: Add the dry ingredients. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in several additions, mixing just until combined after each. Stop several times to scrape down the sides of the bowl — the cocoa powder and pudding mix can settle at the bottom and resist incorporation. Six additions keep the mixing gentle and prevent overdeveloping the gluten.

Step 5: Stream in the melted chocolate and fold in the chips. With the mixer running on low, slowly pour in the melted chocolate and mix until fully combined. The dough will deepen in color and take on a glossy, fudgy consistency. Add the chocolate chips and stir them in by hand or on the lowest mixer speed just until distributed.

Step 6: Chill the dough. Cover the dough and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or overnight for the thickest, chewiest results. The dough will firm considerably and become much easier to portion.

I baked a batch without chilling — because I am impatient, as I often am — and the cookies were still thick and had a great texture. But they improved greatly after refrigeration. Three hours is the minimum; overnight is worth it.

Step 7: Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Pull the chilled dough from the refrigerator while the oven comes up to temperature.

Step 8: Portion and flatten. Roll the dough into balls approximately the size of ping-pong balls and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Press down slightly on the top of each ball to flatten it just enough to create a level surface. The dough will be firm and hold its shape cleanly at this point.

Step 9: Bake the cookies. Bake for 12 minutes. When they are ready, the edges will be set but the centers will still look glossy and almost underdone — that is exactly right. These cookies will not look finished when you pull them from the oven, and that is the goal.

Step 10: Cool on the pan, then transfer. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before moving them to a wire rack. They firm up as they cool and that glossy center sets into the dense, fudgy texture that makes these worth the wait. If you break one open while it is still warm, it will be a mess — a delicious mess — but give them time.

The dough freezes beautifully. Roll the chilled dough into balls, freeze them in a zip-top bag, and bake straight from frozen whenever a craving hits — add about 3 minutes to the bake time. They might be even better baked from frozen. Just sayin’.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

If these deeply chocolate, fudgy pudding cookies won you over, there is plenty more where that came from. Browse all my Cookie Recipes or make these cream cheese chocolate chip cookies next!