These Peppermint Mocha Oatmeal Cookies are a Holiday-flavored everything but the kitchen sink type of dessert! Made with chocolate, peppermint, oats, and instant coffee, these cookies are a personal favorite of mine. They’re the perfect Christmas cookie to make at home or share with family and friends.
What’s better, a chocolate or oatmeal cookie?
I could never decide, so I made my Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies and shared the recipe recently. They’re one of my all time favorite cookies.
Let’s take that cookie and put a holiday spin on it, shall we? How about peppermint? And more chocolate? And… coffee?
These Peppermint Mocha Oatmeal Cookies are loaded with some of my favorite things: cocoa powder, chocolate chips, oats, instant coffee, and peppermint. If you could put Christmas into a cookie, I’m pretty sure it would be this one! Or, at least, this would be my favorite Christmas cookie. 😉
These loaded cookies are soft and chewy, with crispy edges. Each bite is a little different, some with more peppermint, chocolate or a light coffee flavor.
These Peppermint Mocha Oatmeal Cookies are really fun to decorate too, to make them fancy for the Holidays. I chose to decorate mine with a white chocolate drizzle and crushed candy canes.
Festive, loaded and sweet, these cookies will disappear quickly!
Let’s chat about cookie ingredients.
First, these Peppermint Mocha Oatmeal Cookies can be made gluten-free with an all purpose gluten-free flour blend and certified gluten-free oats. Or, you can make them with regular white flour and rolled oats.
If you live at high altitude (6-8,000 ft) I’d recommend using quick cooking oats so the cookies don’t dry out as quickly.
These cookies can also be made dairy-free with a dairy-free butter alternative and dairy-free chocolate chips.
You could also try making them egg-free with one flax or chia egg (1 tbsp flax or chia seed and 2 1/2 tbsp water). They will be a little softer with an egg substitute.
If you prefer to sweeten your cookies more naturally, you could use coconut sugar in place of the brown sugar. I would not recommend changing the sugars anymore than that though. After all, these loaded cookies are not healthy anyway! They are rich and indulgent.
If you like a strong coffee flavor, you may want to add more instant coffee to your cookie dough (1 1/2 tbsp or so of instant coffee instead). However, the coffee flavor is supposed to be light. To enhance the chocolate and add just a touch of coffee flavor.
Alternatively, you could leave out the instant coffee entirely if you don’t want the coffee flavor.
So, how much do you like peppermint?
You can decided how strong you want these cookies to be flavored peppermint. For a strong (but not overpowering) peppermint flavor, I’d recommend using 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract and peppermint chocolate chips. I used these and they’re delicious!
For a lighter peppermint flavor, I’d recommend 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract and semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips. Or, no peppermint extract and only peppermint chocolate chips of some kind. Think about if you would like pops of peppermint, or peppermint in every single bite.
I prefer a lighter peppermint flavor. My mom on the other hand, the stronger the better!
Lastly, don’t forget to decorate your cookies.
You have a few options here:
- Leave them plain. Still delicious, good-looking cookies.
- Melt a little of your favorite chocolate (about 1/4 cup) and drizzle it across the top. Sprinkle crushed candy canes or sprinkles on top.
- Melt more of your favorite chocolate (about 1/2-3/4 cup or so) and dip one half of each cookie in it. Sprinkle crushed candy canes or sprinkles on top.
Whatever you do decide to do, you can’t lose here! They’re all delicious. So, I guess it comes down to this: How loaded do you want your cookies to be?
If you, like me, can’t decide what cookies to make for Christmas this year, these cookies are a great choice. They’re like chocolate cookies, oatmeal cookies, mocha cookies, and peppermint cookies, ALL in one!
Soft, chewy, with crispy edges, these rich and indulgent cookies are sure to become a favorite during the Holidays. If they do, let me know! I love to hear from you all. Leave me a comment, below, or find me on Instagram.
And don’t forget to check out a few of my other Christmas Cookie favorites, like my gluten-free Thumbprint Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, and Gingerbread Oatmeal Cookies.
- 3/4 cup gluten-free all purpose flour (or regular flour)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup butter, softened (dairy-free butter alternative or coconut oil)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1-1 1/2 tbsp instant coffee*
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4-1/2 tsp peppermint extract*
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 cups rolled oats (certified gluten-free)
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips (peppermint, milk, semi-sweet, or dark)
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To a small mixing bowl, add your flour, baking soda, salt, and whisk them together. Add your cocoa powder (through a fine mesh strainer, ideally) and whisk together till well combined.
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In a large mixing bowl, add your butter, brown sugar and white sugar and beat together with a mixer till creamy. Add your instant coffee, vanilla and peppermint extract and beat together again. Lastly, add your egg and briefly mix it in.
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Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and stir them together till well combined. Add your oats and chocolate chips and fold them in, till well combined.
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Let your batter rest and preheat your oven to 350 and line a pan with parchment paper (or spray with non-stick spray). *If your batter doesn't rest the cookies will spread too thin.
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Using a small cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto your pans, evenly spaced apart with no more than 12 cookies per pan. Gently flatten the tops of your cookies (as these cookies don't spread much). Bake in the oven for 9-11 minutes, or till the edges of the cookies are set.
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Let cool. Top with a chocolate drizzle and crushed candy canes sprinkled across the top, for some pizzazz! Devour!
*See post for more information. Amount of instant coffee and peppermint extract are a personal preference.Â
*These cookies will taste best within the first 3-4 days.
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