Chocolate Cornflake Cookies

If you love a chunky, chewy, crunchy and bakery-style cookies, you are going to adore these chocolate cornflake cookies. They are thick, soft, chewy, packed with milk and dark chocolate, caramel and cornflakes for a delicious combination of flavour and texture.

This recipe is heavily inspired by a shop in the UK (M&S) and are perfect for this time of year. The addition of black treacle gives these cookies a deliciously rich and caramel flavour, whilst the chocolate and cornflakes give a lovely crunch to every bite. They are very easy to make as well, with no chilling required.

Notes from The Patisserie

These cookies are definitely one of my favourites, as the flavours throughout are some of my favourites. They are thick and chewy, but packed full of flavour. They are large, bakery-style and perfect for the autumnal months.

I adore the combination of chocolate, caramel and cornflakes as it provides sweetness, crunch and a balance. The black treacle dough gives the cookie a deeper colour and rich flavour depth without making the cookies too sweet.

Ingredient Notes and Tips

The full recipe can be found in the recipe card below, but here are some tips, swaps and notes to help bake the best basic cookie dough:

• Butter – I liked to use either an unsalted block butter or a baking spread for cookies like this – Make sure if you are using a baking spread, to use this cold from the fridge, but block butter can be room temperature to make it easier to mix.
• Sugar – I used all dark brown soft sugar in this cookie recipe as I needed the depth of flavour, but you can use half and half of dark brown soft sugar, and light brown soft sugar, or all light brown soft sugar.
• Egg – I always used medium eggs in baking, but you can use a medium egg or a large egg for these
• Flavours – I find the addition of a good quality vanilla extract adds a delicious flavour level to the cookies
• Flour – Use plain flour (also known as all purpose flour) as you want to control how much raising agent you add yourself 
• Raising agents – Using a small amount of baking powder AND bicarbonate of soda provides the best texture – they do not swap easily!
• Salt – I use a little sea salt in my bakes as I prefer to control how much salt is in the recipe. You can swap to salted butter if you prefer and leave out the extra salt

The chocolate, the caramel and cornflakes

• Chocolate – the recipe as a base is designed for a mix of milk chocolate and dark chocolate. You can use bars of chocolate that you chop up into pieces, chocolate chips, or chocolate buttons – you can also switch to other chocolates if you wish (such as white chocolate)
• Caramel – You can buy delicious caramel fudge chunks in the bake aisle of supermarkets, and they are a delicious level of flavour. This is optional, or swappable for something such as my homemade toffee
• Cornflakes – You can use basic cornflakes, or honey nut cornflakes like I do – however, I will say that using a fresh packet I find best as cornflakes do become stale quite quickly. If you like things sweet, you could even swap to Frosties (a UK classic cereal)

Swapping up the recipe

To make these cookies New-York style, there are a couple of changes to make. Use 1.5tsp of baking powder instead of the standard 0.5tsp, and make sure to chill the cookies once portioned for a minimum of an hour before baking. Increase the oven temperature to 200ºc in a conventional oven, or 180ºc in a fan assisted oven.

Help keep the cornflakes crunchy by baking them first, and there are two ways to do this. These processes are optional and I often don’t bother as I like the cornflakes in the cookies as they are, and as the cornflakes WILL soften slightly and you cannot prevent it (they are added into these cookies for the chewy texture).

One method – Preheat the oven to 160ºc and line a tray with parchment paper. Spread the cornflakes over the tray, and bake for about 10 minutes (moving often for an even bake) until they are a deeper golden.

Second method – Or, you can melt 15g of butter and 10g of golden syrup, melt these together, and toss the cornflakes in this mix. Then, bake them in the oven for 10 minutes. These processes are optional.

Storage and Freezing

Whilst I find these cookies best to eat whilst warm, these cookies will last for 3-4+ days at room temperature. I store them in an airtight container with layers of parchment paper in-between layers of cookies if needed.

You can freeze these cookies for 3+ months once baked – let them cool fully before freezing. Freeze flat whilst on a tray, and then freeze in a container. You can also freeze the raw cookie dough and bake from frozen (Add 1-2 minutes baking time) if you want freshly baked cookies.