German Chocolate Cake Cookies – Soft, chewy chocolate cookies with rich caramel, coconut, and pecan frosting won’t last long on the cookie plate.
These German Chocolate Cake cookies are a delicious household staple. They make a perfect snack year-round but are an incredibly excellent holiday gift! They’re a great addition to any dessert table, but they won’t last long as they’re deliciously addictive!
Today, I am featuring one of the best cookies you will ever eat! A cookie that will become so addictive you will make them in large quantities and freeze them to have them for a week or two.
My Favorite Kitchen Tools To Make This Recipe
From trusty pots and pans to handy gadgets, I’ve curated a list of products I use and love.
Making one of the traditional cakes, German Chocolate cake, into a cookie was one of the best recipes I have ever made. How can you go wrong with caramel, pecans, and chocolate?
My favorite thing about this recipe is that everything is from scratch. This chocolate cookie is so chewy and moist, making it the best platform for the frosting. Bake them today, as they are hands down amazing, delicious, unbelievable, out of this world, and the best cookie ever, as quoted by my friends and family who tried them.
Recipe Tips
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter softened
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Eggs beaten
- All-purpose flour
- Unsweetened cocoa powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
How do you make German Chocolate Cake Cookies?
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Blend the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla, and eggs in a medium bowl.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and blend until combined.
Drop the dough by tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheets, 12 cookies per sheet, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
Cool on a baking rack.
Add evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and vanilla to a large pan and place on the stovetop over medium heat to make the frosting. Stir so that it becomes well combined.
Continue stirring until thickened; this takes approximately 11-12 minutes.
Once thickened, remove from heat and add coconut and pecans. Beat until thick enough to spread.
Spread frosting over the tops of cooled cookies.
More German Chocolate Cake inspired recipes
What brings me the most joy when making this cookie is my husband. He loves these; had I made these when we were dating, I think we would have married even earlier. He loves them so much it would have created an instant proposal.
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German Chocolate Cake Cookies
Video
Ingredients
Chocolate Cookies
- 1 cup salted butter softened
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs beaten
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt
Coconut Pecan Frosting
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- Optional: ¼ cup chocolate candy coating melted for drizzle
Instructions
Chocolate Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a stand mixer or large bowl using a hand mixer, blend the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla, and eggs. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and blend until combined.
- Drop the dough by tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheets, 12 cookies per sheet, and bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on a baking rack.
Coconut Pecan Frosting
- Add evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter and vanilla to a large pan and place on stovetop over medium heat.
- Stir so that it becomes well combined. Continue stirring until thickened, this takes approximately 11-12 minutes. I set my timer for 11 minutes and 30 seconds, this seems to work every time.
- Once thickened remove from heat and add coconut and pecans. Beat until thick enough to spread.
- Spread frosting over the tops of cooled cookies.
- Optional: Drizzle with melted candy coating and let set up. Top with a white chocolate heart. See note.
- Note: I melted some pink chocolate candy coating, put it into a Ziplock lunch baggie, snipped off a small corner. Then on some wax paper drew hearts with the chocolate. I let them harden, then gently placed them on top of the cookies. A great decoration for upcoming Valentine’s Day.
How many cookies does this recipe make?
Krista –
It makes 2 dozen. The cookies will come out flatter than you may expect, I just had someone email me about that. They are soft and chewy! Enjoy! xo San
I just made these for tmrw and they are AMAZING!!! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Marilyn this made my day! Thank you for coming back to write this. So happy you loved it as much as us! xo San
Wow, I mean wow these cookies were a HUUGE hit at my sister’s wedding last night. I kept getting compliments on how wonderful the cookies tasted! My sister’s husband’s family are Italian and I needed to make a “family” cookie recipe that’s German from our family. I came across your recipe, thanks to Pinterest! And thanks to you for your recipe and I will be making these again!
Anecia – this made my night! Thank you for coming back and giving feed back! We love them too so happy your family loved your German recipe 😉 xo San
For the frosting…
It says “beat until thick enough …”. Does that mean with a mixer?
Yes Diane, I will revise that to be more clear. THANK YOU! xo San
Does the frosting set up well? I would love to make these to send to my dad for his birthday since he is a huge fan of German Chocolate cake, but I need to be able to ship them…. Which means they would have to be stacked on top of each other. Would it work with these cookies?
Jenelle – it sets up nicely. You could mail them for sure. Let them sit out for a bit to let the frosting harden but you could do this and you could even slide pieces of parchment paper in between. Where are you sending them?
My frosting is not getting thick? How long do you need to beat it?
Oh my! These look heavenly!!
These are the best cookies ever! I made them for a Father’s Day brunch and they disappeared! Everyone loved them! You cannot eat just one! Thanks for the recipe!
A YAY! I am to happy, thanks for taking the time to come and write this. xo San
My mom loved these German chocolate cookies were a hit. I used splenda brown sugar and added chopped brownie pieces to the recipe, so that it resembled the ice cream we ate as kids. The whole batch was gone in seconds!!! Definitely a keeper with my bunch. thanks for posting a great recipe
Oh dear God! These look so amazing! I must try them out!
I just made a comment about this recipe on this Pin over on Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/pin/164381455124216234 – Comment: Does this bother anyone else? – This image has a watermark right on it for the creator of this recipe – https://praxis-platform.live/2014/01/german-chocolate-cake-cookies%3C/a%3E – But yet this Hungry Recipe person steals it anyway and get 249 rePins… We all need to stick together and try our best to give credit where credit is due…
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It looks yummy… I look forward to trying this recipe… and I am Pinning it fro this page!
Hey thank you for letting me know! xo San
Hi Sandra I’m Marita, from Peru, your cookies looks delicious, I hope make it as soon as posible, but I have a question: how many grams of butter in a stick are? I’ll be waiting for your answer, thank you so much!
113 grams in one stick of butter. I hope this helps. xo San
Hi Sandra they look amazing but I need ingredients in grams not cups. look forward to reply so I can get baking these lol
I made these for my fiancé’s birthday party last night and they were a huge hit! We passed them around to others in the bar and some people took a couple home to have with a glass of milk. 😉 I doubled the cookie recipe and made 1 1/2 times the frosting and it was the perfect amount – made about 60 cookies. I used almond bark for the drizzle. This is going in our family recipe book for sure! 😉
Hi, just wondering if I did something wrong here.. After adding all the frosting ingredients together in my pan and stirring and applying heat, it seemed as if the egg whites didn’t quite mix. I wasn’t worried about it until they started turning white and then they definitely weren’t mixing well. I strained the pieces out and took away from heat, but it doesn’t seem to be thickening quite as much as I would expect it to. Do you think refrigerating would help ?
Haley – I am sending you an email right now. xo San
Please send to me an email too.
I really want this to learn…
Thank you!
Are the cookies a soft chewy or crunchy cookie?
Soft and chewy!!! Oh so good.
OMG!!! I just made these and they are amazing! They will literally melt in you mouth, thank you so much for posting these they will be my go to holiday treat 🙂
This made my day!!! Thank you for coming back to let me know. xo San
WoW, forget the cake, make the cookies…Thanks for sharing…
I agree with you, I prefer these cookies instead of cakes, really, your tea time will also be great.
How many dozen does this make?
3 dozen
Thank you
these look sooooo amazing!! I was wondering if the gooey topping gets a “crust” to it or do the cookies stick together if they are stacked?
It does harden, but you will be able to stack them once they sit for a while. I would stack them with wax paper. You can also freeze them, they do amazing. Just defrost them by putting them in the fridge for a few hours. Oh, so good. San
I am wondering how they would hold up making them gluten free if you know anyone who has made them.
I have never made these GF. But if you do will you come back and let me know how it goes. I will try this next week.
I am hoping to have time next week to try these. Will post results about how they baked up
Did anyone ever go ahead and try making them gf? If so, how did they turn out, and which gf flour did they use?
Thanks!
I just made this with four bean flour, you can find the recipe on-line. They are amazing! I chose this flour mix as it is used cup for cup like regular wheat flour. I did add 1 tsp. of Xanthum Gum to hold the flours together. AMAZING recipe! I can’t wait to see my daughter’s face when she stops to pick some items up to return to college! YUM!! This may be the best cookie recipe that I have ever made and I have been cooking GF for my daughter for 20 years!