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.
Pin To Your Favorite Pinterest Board!
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.
I followed your recipe, it was easy and the result was seriously delicious and loved by all. A nice finish to the German meal I served. Thanks for pinning! Cathy
Does the frosting on these harden?
It’s gets stiff enough that it doesn’t run and you can eventually stack them too.
These cookies have me swooning! I’m all over ANYTHING German chocolate!!!
P.S. Thanks for the link love 🙂
made these yesterday and my family says they are amazing. I only ate the cookie part because i do not like coconut. But the cookie it’s self was good as well! Did not change a thing about the recipe,
Can the dry cocoa be substituted with regular German chocolate??? I have some left over from the holidays.
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!
Thanks Sandra!
I just finished making the cookies and now I’m getting ready to frost them. I can’t wait! They look wonderful. Thanks for the recipe!
I like to make extra icing on these – it’s the best part!!
Can I use regular 2% milk in this recipe instead of evaporated milk?
Why does it need to be evaporated milk?
Please let me know by e-mailing me at the email address below.
No sorry you need to use evaporated milk but here is an idea: If you don’t have any, make your own: To produce 1 cup of evaporated milk, simmer 2 1/4 cups of regular milk down until it becomes 1 cup. In many recipes, evaporated milk may also be replaced with a combination of whole milk and half-and-half.
These look amazing!
Oh my, these cookies look delicious!
salted or unsalted butter?
I use salted always 😉 San
Unless the recipe calls for salted butter, I always use unsalted when baking. In fact, that’s what I did BEFORE reading down into the comments and finding your “salted” reply to someone else. I haven’t frosted them yet. Would the unsalted butter version of the cookie benefit from adding salt to the frosting, or should I just forget about it and go with what I have?
Also, the prep time and baking time are both wildly optimistic. I have no elves or staff to prepare and measure out all the ingredients. That alone took far longer than your prep time indicates. To make matters worse, I’m working in an under-supplied kitchen with a small hand mixer from the late 1970s and only two cookie sheets — one big and one small. There’s one oven, and it works best to only use the middle rack, which only fits one cookie sheet at a time. Another thing I could not do is get 12 cookies on at the same time. The cookies are too big for that. I did 9 on the big sheet and 6 on the smaller one.. Disclosure: I used 50% more ingredients to make 4.5 dozen cookies. Soooo, prep time was almost two hours and baking time was another two hours. As a mentioned, I haven’t made the frosting yet, so that will add what ~ another hour+ to make and apply to 54 cookies?? I’ve noticed this under-reporting of the time it takes the average person (without elves) to make a recipe is common online and in print. Maybe when testing a recipe, find a friend who isn’t anywhere near professional, and time that person trying to make it and also note what supplies they use before posting times. Of course, it’s always possible if the times were more accurate, most people would forget it and buy cookies from a bakery. Thanks.
I hope they turned out alright in the end! I would suggest just skipping the salt at that point; if you added a pinch of salt as the recipe suggests they should be okay. I updated the recipe to specify salted butter for anyone in the future.
I’m sorry it took so long for you, with the right tools it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours if you are doubling the recipe. If you make the frosting while the first batch of cookies bake it will save you a lot of time. The frosting will keep while the cookies cool, and you can start frosting them as the remaining batches bake. This is how most recipes prep times are counted as it’s the most efficient way when baking. Hopefully next time it won’t take quite as long!
These cookies look amazing! Definitely making them this weekend!
I hope you enjoy them, thanks!
How can you not want to eat these all up?! Yummy!!
They definitely get eaten up fast! Thank you!
Oh, my! I think I could eat these cookies for breakfast, lunch, & pretty much anytime really. They look so tasty! I’ll definitely be making these little delights!
Thank you, enjoy!
Oh wow these sound delish!!
Thanks!
What a yummy treat! Just looking at them is making me wish I had a couple right now!
Thanks, enjoy!
These cookies would be devoured around my house!
They definitely tend to disappear here! Enjoy!
Oh my this cookie sounds incredible! My favorite cake, in cookie form!
Thank you!