Olive Oil Crinkle Cookies
Big chewy brown sugar cookies made with olive oil. These crinkle cookies puff up in the oven and flatten into the prettiest, craggy cookies. They taste prominently of olive oil so use a good quality.
If you did a quick google image search for ‘crinkle cookies’ these are not even close to what you’d find: rows and rows of round, puffy chocolate cookies rolled in powdered sugar. These are clearly not those although they do share something in common with them: crinkles.
Remember these chocolate sugar cookies? I just absolutely love how they look and while I didn’t intentionally set out to create the vanilla version, I fell in love with these. The initial goal was a pistachio, white chocolate olive oil cookie but after some tests I somehow found the cookie itself the most enjoyable part and decided I didn’t need any other distractions.
Having said that, the combination of olive oil and white chocolate turned out truly delicious and we may find ourselves revisiting this in the near future. What’s so great about crinkle cookies?
Really the magic is in the leavening and the chemical reaction that happens in the oven; a mixture of baking soda and powder (more than you’d usually use for a cookie) reacting with the acid in the cookie, causes them to both spread and puff up causing large crevices in the cookie. You’ll notice in the instructions that I ask you to wait until you can see this before you take them out.
Then, as they cool the puff goes and gives away to a flat cookie with large grooves. They are gorgeous but more importantly they taste wonderful: crispy edges and very chewy, nearly fudge-like centers.
Recipe Ingredients
Olive oil: Extra virgin, and use a very good quality as you will taste it! I
Sugar: A mix of fine granulated and brown, dark or light is fine.
Egg: Just one, no need to bring it to room temperature.
Flour: All purpose flour, I used KAF which is a protein content of 11.7. I imagine a lower protein flour will cause the cookies to spread a bit more.
Cornstarch: This helps gives the cookies a chewy interior. You can also use tapioca starch if that’s what you have.
Salt & Vanilla: Fine sea salt and pure vanilla extract.
Chewy Crinkle Cookies as Crinkle Cookie Sandwiches
My gut instinct (or my summer sweating self as I’m writing this in early august under 90 degree weather) knows that these would be absolutely wonderful with a blob of ice cream sandwiched in the middle.
I also think that, given they aren’t that sweet, they would be the kind of cookie you might like to give a filling: a buttercream, a jam or maybe even a curd.
Orange Glazed Olive Oil Cookies
I had a couple of comments saying the cookies lacked flavor (this is going to happen when the olive oil isn’t quality or isn’t something you enjoy tasting) so I’ve added an option to get some citrusy orange flavor in the cookies. If you’d like to take it a step further, an orange vanilla bean glazed was AMAZING on these. Addictive and I couldn’t get enough of them. Simply whisk together 1 cup powdered sugar (organic, made with tapioca not corn starch), 1 tsp pure vanilla extract and just enough orange juice to make a thick glaze. Dip the cooled cookies in the glaze to coat.
Olive Oil Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- ½cup or 100g olive oil
- ¾cup or 170g brown sugar
- ¼cup or 55g granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 160g or 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ tsp fine sea salt
- zest of 1 orange optional
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two greased cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In a bowl whisk together the olive oil, sugars, vanilla and egg very well. Add the cornstarch, baking powder, soda, salt and flour and, using a rubber spatula, mix until well combined.
- Use a cookie scoop to portion the dough, I use a 2 tablespoon scoop, leaving about two inches between each dough mound as these will spread.
- Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, at ten check on them - if they have the large crinkles they are done. If not or just beginning to, leave them in for another 2-4 minutes. Take them out when they are puffy, have wrinkles all over, and are dark on the edges. They will flatten as they cool.
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these are so underrated pls make them they are so crispy and one of the best cookies i have ever made. you have got to try these. all i can say is yumm
These cookies taste amazing! I saw so many recipes calling for a cup of butter, and I was so happy to find this recipe instead. I did have to bake them for about 14 minutes, but I have an old gas stove from the 50’s, so that wasn’t unexpected. My only concern was I got no crinkle at all, even though they were getting very brown on the bottom. Any tips for helping with that next time? I think I going to make an orange glaze to drizzle on top since these look a little boring without the crinkle. Thanks again!
These are delicious! I love baking with olive oil. I cut back on the sugar as some suggested, but I think they would have still been delicious with the full amount! Next time I’ll follow the recipe exactly.
These cookies are fabulous. I definitely want to try them with orange zest next time, but they are great even without. My dough was definitely softer than Sam’s demo video (didn’t quite hold the scooper shape), and yet the baked cookie looks (and tastes) perfect!
that’s wonderful jennifer! so happy to hear it
These are good! Just the brown sugar was perfectly sweet for me. I used 1/2 tsp salt and I would go to 1/4 next time. I didn’t have an orange so I used lemon zest which totally made this cookie.
I made this recipe almost exactly. The only difference is I used lemon. They’re fantastic. I made them for my neighbor and she asked for the recipe.
Perfect. Simple. No notes. Making these for the second time this week. I especially appreciate such a great olive oil cookie recipe for health reasons. Thank you!
Just checking: the flour is supposed to be cups, right?
Mine became way darker (because of the dark sugar I guess?) and super big! I tried to take them out after 10 minutes but they didn’t even seem solid enough yet (though they were puffy and crinkly)
Okay… taking them out of the oven after 13 minutes now and hoping after cooling they will be a bit more solid? 🙂 I hope the inside will be fudgy though, haha!
(I added a little bit of vanilla sugar and some almond flour).
it is now in both cups and grams! a darker brown sugar will make them darker.
Great cookies. I took off one star because I thought they were too sweet (like @Richard stated in the comments below).
I used Cobram Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil. (Rich, Robust, and Complex). I weighed my ingredients with my Escali scale.
I baked these cookies 3 ways. The original way, then I modified part of the original mix and added lemon zest, and the last way I modified the original mix was by adding the cinnamon, nutmeg, and a touch of all spice that @Eve Wright suggested below in the comments.
I must agree they are sweet for me. I would reduce the sugar if possible. Otherwise they were great! They did not taste like olive oil to me as the sugar shined through.
I’m noticing 2 cups of sugar is too sweet for me for cookie recipes.
But, @Buttermilk by Sam’s Thick Cocoa Brownies (Published on: MARCH 2, 2020) were phenomenal! I’ve fshared the recipe at least five to seven times by now and I only made them on Jan. 19. 23. They are my new go to brownie recipe and I love them even more eating them straight out of the freezer.
**You should try “frozen” brownies! They are LIFE CHANGING**
I’m glad I found your website Sam and I hope to continue to try more of your recipes!
I have already made it and they are so delicious. I added only brown sugar because I thought that they are going to be sweet enough. In the future I think I will add less salt, for me they were a little bit too salty.
Thank you so much!
Nice recipe – I followed the directions exactly except I enhanced it with 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp each nutmeg and ground ginger. The cookies came out delicious.
Loved these! The cookie texture is lovely and the flavor is mild but you can taste the olive oil! I was feeling festive, so I dipped these in a cinnamon-cardamom-allspice sugar (somewhat like your choc molasses cookie method) for a snickerdoodle spin!
I liked these. I intentionally left out the white sugar, and they were still too sweet for me. I’ll cut down the sugar further in the future. I added some lemon juice and cinnamon, and they were still a bit on the bland side. In the future, I’ll add lemon zest as well as several tbsp lemon juice. Also, as an alternative, I think these would make a nice spice cookie, with ginger and other spices added.
P.S. Do space the cookies well because they spread a lot while baking. The baking time was about 14 minutes for me.
WOW~ these are so good. Not too sweet which is perfect for my taste. I have lemon-flavored olive oil that I would like to try next. I wonder if the lemon flavor would come through? Great recipe either way. Thanks.
It could depending on how strong it is – I’d add some lemon zest in there too!