Easter Brown Sugar Cookies are the perfect small batch cookie recipe to make this Spring. Made with brown sugar that imparts a rich molasses flavour, then filled with Cadbury's mini eggs and white chocolate chunks, these soft and chewy cookies are delicious.
These cookies are hands down a favourite treat for the kids at this time of year. But who am I kidding, adults love them too. So I made this into small batch portion size of 10 cookies. I know many of you are self isolating or in lockdown on your own or with one other person. This way you'll have the right amount to enjoy over a couple of days without any wastage. Everyone deserves a treat.
WHY USE BROWN SUGAR IN THESE EASTER BROWN SUGAR COOKIES
Alrighty, the reason I used brown sugar alone in these cookies is because I wanted them to have the ultimate moist and chewy factor possible.
The brown sugar is packed full of cane molasses, and this adds a whole other layer of rich flavour, but also moisture to the cookie. Perfect for getting that soft chewy texture.
We won't stop there. The baking soda also reacts to the acid in the brown sugar and acts as a leavening agent which helps puff those little beauties up.
Now if you can't get your hands on dark brown sugar then by all means substitute it for light brown sugar or granulated sugar. Yes it will taste slightly different, but it'll still rock!
TOP TIPS FOR MAKING THESE COOKIES
TIP 1: Creaming your sugar and butter
In my recipe below I call for the butter and brown sugar to be creamed for a good three minutes. Please don't scrimp on the time. By beating for this long you are not only breaking down the sugar crystals but alsoadding air into the butter. You want to see a visible visual difference in the look of your mixture from start to finish - it NEEDS to be paler in colour. Ok? if we want soft chewy cookies instead of dense rocks, you'll need to do this step!
TIP 2: Refrigerating or freezing the cookie dough
When we cream the butter we use room temperature butter so that it's soft and maleable to be able to be creamed by the mixer. By the time the dough is made the ingredients are all at room temp right. I find that if we bake them right off like this they tend to spread more. There's acually nothing wrong with this - if you prefer larger, flatter cookies then by all means miss out this step. But by cooling the dough, the butter re-solidifyies and has a chance to firm up so that when baked the cookies hold their shape better. It also helps with the chew factor and richness in taste.
TIP 3: Getting those cookies round
This one is optional. But have you taken your cookies out of the oven and they are kind of a weird shape? Sometimes that happens. Well, a tip from my friend Erin of Cloudy Kitchen fame gives you round cookies to rival any bakeries!! Once the cookies have baked, pull the tray out of the oven, grab a cookie cutter larger than the actual cookie (or a mug if you don't have a cookie cutter- it just needs to be round). Place over the top of a cookie onto the baking tray and then twirl it round and round the cookie. Kinda like the cookie is playing with a hula hoop around its waist! Because the cookie is still hot, it's still malleable so the sides can be gently pushed into shape.
HOW TO FREEZE COOKIE DOUGH
This is a great tip if you want to make a double batch of cookies and freeze some of them. Great for if you get unexpected guests (well obviously not at the moment in our lockdown but we will in the future!), or you are popping over to a friends house and need to bring a gift. (Again, we'll be doing that before we know it. Keep the faith.)
So scoop your cookie dough balls and place on a lined baking tray. Place the scoops of dough close to each other, but not touching. Refrigerate for 45 minutes or freeze the dough balls on the tray for 30 minutes. The outside needs to be firm and hard which will prevent them from sticking together in the ziplock bag in the next step.
Then place any of the balls that you want to freeze into a ziplock bag, seal and place in your freezer. You can store them there for up to 3 months.
When ready to bake, just pull out your required number, place straight onto a baking tray and bake, just add a couple of minutes onto the bake time.
How to store your Easter Brown Sugar Cookies
These cookies will remain fresh at room temperature stored in an air tight container for three days.
Alternatively store in an airtight container in the fridge for 5 days.
For another delicious Easter Recipe try:
Easter Cupcakes With Whipped White Chocolate Ganache
Easter Brown Sugar Cookies, Small Batch
Ingredients
- 120 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 100 g dark brown sugar, firmly packed
- 150 g plain flour (all-purpose)
- ½ teaspoon cornflour (cornstarch)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- 1 egg, room temperature
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 100 g mini eggs, chopped into small chunks
- 50 g mini eggs, chopped into large chunks
- 80 g white chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar for three minutes minimum until pale in colour, scraping down the sides of the bowl halfway.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cornflour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Scrape down the mixing bowl sides and add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat until combined.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients (flour mix), and 100g of mini eggs chopped into small pieces and the white chocolate, then mix until combined.
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Using a cookie scoop or a teaspoon, scoop balls of cookie dough into inch sized balls and place them on a baking tray and place them in the freezer for 20 minutes (or fridge for 40 minutes).
- Remove the cookie dough balls from the freezer and place them on two lined baking trays, leaving a good 2 inches between the balls.
- Bake for 7 to 8 minutes until the edges are just turning golden. My preferences are soft, chewy cookies but if you prefer crispier cookies, then add an extra minute or so to the cooking time. Remove the tray from the oven; whilst still hot, sprinkle the remaining larger pieces on mini eggs onto the cookies, pushing them in gently. Using a large cookie cutter, place it over a cookie and twist it around, pushing the edges of the cookie gently in to help form it into a round shape. Leave on the baking tray for 15 minutes to cool and then transfer to a wire rack to cool further. Serve immediately.
All recipes are developed and tested in Metric grams. I strongly recommend that you bake using digital scales for a more accurate result. I have provided a conversion to US customary in the recipe but please note that I haven’t tested using this method.
Notes
Nutrition
NOTE: During our current lockdown and homeschooling situation, time is short to dedicate to photoshoots and blog post writing. I still want to be creating recipes for you but they just have to be in a modifyied format. As a result my ingredients and process shots won't feature for the time being and my copy writing will be shorter. Hope that you can understand!
Anna
They look amazing Emma! Love that these are small batch too! Perfect little treats, not just for Easter!
Emma
Swap out the mini eggs for any other type of shot, an you are right- not just for Easter. Hope you are doing well lovely xx
Sandra
Amazing recipe, thank you. Easy to follow and tasted delicious.
Emma
That’s brilliant- thanks so much for letting me know! Super happy that you enjoyed them xx
Claudia
These cookies were absolutely delicious! Perfect Easter treat, and really easy to make! Thank you so much, half the batch disappeared straight out of the oven 😀
Emma
That’s great to hear Claudia. Lucky you made a double batch so that you could have leftovers! x
Lexy
These were amazing! I made 2x the amount as I wanted to do some curb side deliveries for friends and family for Easter and they were VERY much enjoyed by everyone! Simple but super tasty and will definitely become a new Easter staple! Thank you for this delicious recipe 🙂
Emma
I bet your friends and family were so happy to receive these! So happy you enjoyed them x
Samantha
These look great! I don’t have a mixer though, so wondering how they would turn out mixing by hand? 🙂 x
Emma
Hi Samantha- I actually cover the point of why we cream the butter and sugar together in the tips section of the blog post. Primarily we do it to break down the sugar crystals and to aerate the butter which intern will give you soft chewy cookies. I don’t recommend doing it by hand but by all means have a go and let me know how they turn out...but just go into your bake knowing that they won’t turn out identical to these. Good luck x
Tamara
I've already made this recipe twice and it's so delicious! I just changed the Easter eggs because it is winter, and used chocolate instead but it's still more than delicious ❤️🍫.
Emma
This is amazing Tamara- thank you so much I really appreciate for feedback and am so happy that you subbed the mini easter eggs for regular choc. Not long now until it’s easter and those mini eggs reappear in the store. x
Marina Godin
Made the recipe and they look great but I don’t understand why yours have ripple effects and mine do not?
Can you think of a reason for this?
Many thanks
Emma
Hi Marina, There could be a couple of reasons for this. Did you beat the butter until pale, for long enough? This aerates the butter, helping create lift in the oven. Did you measure in grams...measuring in cups can cause too much flour in the batter. Your oven temp may run a little hotter than mine and so the cookies come out slightly more baked which results in a more ‘set’ cookie. Then when you come to ‘hula hoop’ the cookies, the cookies don’t round. My cookies are set on the outside but soft in the middle when they come out so that when i ‘lula hoop’ them with the cookie cutter to make them round, they squish up a bit in the centre causing them to wrinkle. Another tip over baker use is to bang the tray when straight out of the oven which deflates the cookie and wrinkles them a bit. So measuring in grams, beating the butter for long enough, oven temp, bake time, how much you shape them post baking are all factors. Good luck for next time, Emma
Hannah
I haven't tried this recipe yet but I definitely plan to! They look so delicious!
With nutritional info - one cookie is 280 cals??
Emma
Hi Hanna,
Thank you so much for your message and query. I do hope that you have a chance to make them. Yes, the cal is 280 for the one cookie. Around 250 seems to be a standard per cookie. I think because this has white chocolate and mini eggs in them it increases the count. If it's a problem you could leave out the white choc. Thanks, Emma