It's the holiday season, which means it's time for HOLIDAY COOKIES. If you're anything like me and have a large sweet tooth, the winter months are your absolute favorite for all of your dessert snacking needs. Gingerbread, snickerdoodle, sugar, chocolate chip, peanut butter: you name it! It'll probably all be in your kitchen at one point during the winter.

However, with all the same options every year, holiday cookies are starting to get boring after my 19 years of life on this planet. Don't get me wrong, they're all still delicious, but I just wish there was something different...just a way to SPICE things up a bit perhaps.

My puns are horrendous, but I can tell you for sure, these Chocolate Mexican Spice Cookies aren't! Now let's get down to business: here's how to make them!  

Mexican-Spiced Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

  • Prep Time:15 mins
  • Cook Time:12 mins
  • Total Time:27 mins
  • Servings:36
  • Easy

    Ingredients

  • 1 box Devil's Food cake mix
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper or more if you want it to be spicier
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups confectioners sugar for rolling
chocolate
Leah Hillegas
  • Step 1

    To start, gather all of your ingredients. I like to do this for whatever I make just so I know where everything is. While you're doing this, preheat your oven to 350 and let it do its thing.
    ALSO: Cayenne is much more expensive then I imagined, luckily for me I went home the week before, and raided my mom's spice cabinet (hence the container of cayenne); sorry mom!

    tea
  • Step 2

    In a large bowl, pour in your box of Devil's Food cake mix, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. Then mix it all up.

    chili, condiment, pepper, coffee
  • Step 3

    Add your eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla to your powdered mixture. Begin stirring until a dough forms-- it should look like this!

    chocolate ice cream, cream, fudge, brownie, ice cream, ice, chocolate
  • Step 4

    Shape the dough into one-inch balls. But if the dough is too sticky for you to handle, pop it in the fridge for a half hour. Pour your confectioners sugar into a shallow dish and roll the dough-balls in the sugar to coat them.

    ice, chocolate, cake
  • Step 5

    After you rolled them, arrange them on a cookie sheet.

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  • Step 6

    Pop them in the oven, and let them bake for 12 minutes!

    cake, chocolate
  • Step 7

    After the 12 minutes go by, take them out of the oven. They make feel a bit cake-y, but that's how they're supposed to be. Let them cool for a few minutes, and sprinkle some more powdered sugar over top and wa-lah!

    butter, coconut, chocolate

Overall, these cookies were pretty easy to make! On top of that, they're pretty cheap too! Despite stealing some of my mom's cayenne pepper, it cost me $9 for everything, so with the pepper it'd probably cost around $13.

Aside from the price, they taste incredible. There's just enough spice in them, making your mouth warm whenever you eat one--the perfect winter treat!

Happy Holidays, and enjoy!