The BEST Texas Sheet Cake Cookies
If you love Texas Sheet Cake, these Texas Sheet Cake Cookies are about to become a favorite. They have all the rich chocolate flavor of the classic cake packed into a soft, fudgy cookie that’s topped with a smooth chocolate icing. They’re easy to make, easy to share, and just the thing when a chocolate craving hits.
Texas Sheet Cake Cookies take everything people love about the classic cake and turn it into a handheld treat. The cookies bake up soft and dense with a deep chocolate flavor, then get dipped in a simple chocolate icing while they’re still fresh. The result is a cookie that’s rich, fudgy, and hard to stop eating.
What Is Texas Sheet Cake?
Texas Sheet Cake is a classic chocolate cake known for its thin layer, rich chocolate flavor, and warm chocolate icing poured over the top. It’s often served at potlucks, family gatherings, and holidays because it feeds a crowd and is easy to make.
These cookies borrow those same flavors and textures but package them into individual servings. Perfect for lunches, parties or potlucks, they’re always a hit!
What do you need to make these cookies?
Not a lot! And nothing special, you don’t even need chocolate chips, you just need unsweetened cocoa powder. These easy chocolate cookies are the ultimate way to make a chocoholic happy! And if you have a vanilla cookie lover try these double vanilla cookies.
- salted butter
- cocoa powder, for best results sift this
- salt
- flour
- sugar
- baking soda
- vanilla
- egg
- milk
- powdered sugar, for best results sift this
About These Cookies
Be careful not to over-bake these cookies. They’re meant to stay soft and fudgy, and a few extra minutes in the oven can make them drier than intended. The cookies may look slightly underdone when you pull them out, but they’ll continue setting as they cool.
The recipe calls for a scant amount of sugar in one step. That simply means measuring out 1/3 a cup of sugar and removing about 2 teaspoons of sugar before adding it to the recipe.
If you can swing it sift the powdered sugar and the cocoa powder before adding them to the recipe. I’m not saying sift them together but sift each of them before adding them to the recipe.
Storing These Cookies
Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days. If your kitchen is especially warm, you can store them in the refrigerator. Just let them come to room temperature before serving for the best texture and flavor.
Texas Sheet Cake Cookies
Ingredients
Texas Sheet Cake Cookies
- 10 TBSP salted butter, softened divided
- 2/3 cup sugar scant 2/3 cup, divided, scant simply means a little less than a full 2/3 cup
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/3 cup flour
Icing
- 1/4 cup salted butter
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 1/2 tbsp milk divided, You may need a little extra to thin it down if needed
- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar sifted
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
To make cookies
- Preheat oven to 350˚
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or foil or silpat and set aside
- Melt 2 tbsps of butter, a scant 1/3 cup of sugar (take 1/3 cup of sugar and remove 2 teaspoons of it) and the cocoa powder together just until melted then let it cool
- Meanwhile, cream the remaining 1/2 cup butter and the 1/3 cup sugar together until light and fluffy
- Beat in the egg and vanilla
- In a separate bowl mix the baking soda, salt and flour
- Stir into the sugar mixture
- Then add the cocoa mix and stir until well mixed
- Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment paper
- Drop the dough by tbsp onto the lined baking sheets, making about 24 cookies
- Bake each sheet 7-8 minutes or until just starting to set, don't over bake or burn them, use a spatula to slightly flatten the tops of the cookies
- Let them cool on the sheets for a few minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack
- Place the cooling rack over one of the baking sheets so the icing drips onto the sheet
- When the cookies are cool make the icing, it does set up so don't make it beforehand
To make the icing
- Whisk the butter, cocoa powder, and milk together over medium heat until melted and mixed together
- Remove from the heat and add the powdered sugar and salt stirring to combine, then drizzle in enough extra milk to make the icing thin enough for dipping
- Gently take each cookie and dip the top in the icing and then place it back on the baking sheet to set up
- Once they've set up gently lift them off the baking sheet and place on a platter or plate
- There will be plenty of icing left on the sheet and it makes a tasty treat to pick at, don't waste it
- They can be eaten right away but if you want the icing to harden up give them at least 3-4 hours
- Store them lightly covered but not airtight because the icing will get gummy
Video
Notes
- The recipe calls for a “scant” 2/3 cup of sugar, divided–basically, you want to measure the sugar and then take out 2 teaspoons of sugar
Nutrition
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| Texas Sheet Cake Cookie |
Favorite chocolate? Ha! I'm that person that will melt unsweetened chocolate and mix it with sugar when I need a fix!
ME TOO! That's kinda dangerous though : )
I have never had a Texas sheet cake but these cookies look pretty awesome.
make the Texas Sheet Cake Cookies–you won't regret it!
These are so good and very easy!
oh I am so happy to hear that! I love them too but I don’t like to make them very often because well I like to eat them!
I’m totally drooling. All that chocolate!!
Yum…I love that you made a cookie version of this cake!
What do you mean by “cup scant 2/3 sugar”?
Oops that was a mistake when I migrated my site–thanks for catching it
Pecans? Texas sheet cake has pecans
Sure you can add them. I don’t particularly care for nuts in cookies so I
don’t usually add them in. Personal preference!
Try adding a little coffee to the icing. Amazing – coffee and chocolate.
PAT! I love that idea and I’m going to try it out the next time I make them. Thanks!
Laura, my recipe that I’ve had for about 45 years calls for chopped pecans in the frosting. Not a necessity but an option.
Is there a safe way to ship (so frosting doesn’t get gummy) these? Texas Sheet Cake is my son’s favorite and I’d like to send him some as a gift.
Phyllis, there’s no reason you can’t add pecans–they would be fabulous! As far as shipping I’m just not sure how they would fare. It’s a simple frosting so maybe try it out? Will they be going somewhere hot? That may cause problems.
I make Texas Sheet cake for potlucks or to share. Very dangerous to have one in your home. Amazing chocolate cake crossed with brownie…yum. Will make these when I have a lot of help eating them.
What did you add or leave out to make the frosting light.
Texas sheet cake has by far been my favorite cake ever!! Can these by chance be made ahead of time or frozen.?
I think they can be made 2 days ahead of time and kept covered. I haven’t tried freezing them!
This is the best Texas Sheet Cake cookie recipe I have tried. Perfect ratio of cookie dough to icing. And the icing tastes exactly like the traditional sheet cake icing.
I did add 1/2 tsp. cinnamon to the dough because my Texas Sheet Cake recipe calls for cinnamon.
Made 27 cookies.
ohhh thanks so much!! We love them too. I’m going to try adding a bit of cinnamon because that sounds good!
I’m confused as to how much sugar to use when melting butter sugar and cocoa together.
The total recipe calls for 2/3 cup divided-a scant 2/3 of a cup which means not quite full.
For melting, you use 1/3 cup minus just a bit, and then a full 1/3 cup for the other part of the cookie recipe.
I’m a little confused about the amounts listed for the ingredients. You reference the Cookies and Cups recipe for these cookies, but the amounts you listed are not the same as those listed on the recipe you said you used. You used a little bit more butter and twice as much sugar as the original recipes. Can you explain that?
Sure. My recipe uses cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor (instead of chocolate chips) which if you just added it would be bitter, dry, and ruin the cookies. To finesse the cocoa powder into a decent replacement for chocolate chips you HAVE to add sugar AND butter to make it work. I based my recipe off of her recipe which means I used it as inspiration.
I missed …… at what point do we add the salt when making the icing? Don’t see it in the video nor the written instructions??
Texas sheet cake has always been a favorite of mine so these cookies are a no-brainer. So good! Thanks for sharing your recipe.
Oh my goodness!! Texas Sheet Cake is my boys’ favorite and I knew they’d love these cookies! They were a huge hit!! Thanks so much for this amazing recipe!
this was great at the last bakesale fundraiser
Salted or unsalted butter?
unsalted!
I. Sure this is an idiotic question but when you say melt together the butter, sugar and cocoa – you are only melting the butter, correct? Not melting down the sugar? Sorry to be so dense.
Never a dumb question!! I melt the butter, take it off the heat, THEN stir everything in