These whimsical walnut mushroom cookies with chocolate are a must-bake during Fall. They are tender butter cookies filled with a jammy walnut filling and dipped in chocolate to resemble wild mushrooms. Adored by people of all ages and great for a holiday cookie table.
Do you like mushrooms? I think they’re one of those foods that people either adore or hate, and there’s very little grey area left. Well one workaround is making mushroom cookies instead.
These chocolate walnut cookies that are shaped like mushrooms are a constant at family parties or similar gatherings, and they’re what I look for when I see a cookie platter.
They’re chocolaty, crunchy and have a moist nutty center. And they’re cute. I don’t normally describe food as being cute, but these really are adorable. They remind of the forest, its quietness, the beautiful trees and the cool air.
How mushroom cookies are made
These mushroom cookies are made of three parts:
- The stems are made of a wonderful walnut dough and the caps are sweet and buttery.
- The top cookie portion is made with hollowed out cookies center to make room for a better filling. They are filled with a mixture of cookie crumbs, walnuts, jam and a hint of rum.
- The cherry on top is the dark chocolate they’re dipped in. When you bite into one all these flavors connect and make a really tasty cookie.
And because I like to make extra stems, I dip those into chocolate as well and transform them into tiny tree logs that complete this woodsy cookie table.
More cookie recipes to explore
- Ricotta peach cookies (Another popular Slovenian cookie.)
- Almond strawberry mushroom cookies (A red version of whimsical mushroom cookies.)
- Italian soft almond cookies with cherries (Perfect for the cookie table.)
- Mini egg thick chocolate cookies (Really great with any kind of chocolate chip.)
Recipe
Walnut mushroom cookies
These mushroom cookies are really walnut filled cookies dipped in chocolate. Recipe makes about 40 mushrooms and 40 logs.
Ingredients
Stems
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup walnut meal
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 6 tablespoons white granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 large egg
Caps
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour sifted
- 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Filling
- crumbs from the caps
- 1/2 cup walnut meal
- 1 teaspoon hot cocoa mix
- 1/2 teaspoon rum optional
- 6 tablespoons apricot jam
Chocolate glaze
- 7 oz semisweet chocolate finely chopped
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Instructions
- Make the stems: In a bowl, combine flour with walnut meal and baking powder. In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the egg with the butter and sugar. Once creamy, add the flour mixture gradually until it’s all incorporated. Form the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator as you prepare the other dough.
- Make the caps: Cream butter with sugar. When it's fluffy and pale, whisk in egg and egg yolk. Gradually add flour and baking powder and beat until you get a smooth batter. If it's too sticky add more flour. If it's too dry add a tablespoon of milk. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and cool it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Take the walnut dough (for the stems) out of the refrigerator and tear it into chunks. Roll out each chunk into a thin log and cut it into 1-inch (2.5 cm) long bits.
- Place the stems on your baking sheet, about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, until they rise a bit and are golden brown around the edges. Allow to cool on the baking sheet.
- When the dough for the caps has been properly chilled take it out. Make 40 small balls from the dough and place them on another baking sheet, lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, until they rise and get slightly golden brown.
- Once the caps are baked, start scraping out the centers immediately while they’re still hot (once cold, you won’t be able to do this). Take a small knife and make small holes in the bottom of each round cookie. Scrape out the inside, making sure you don't pierce the cookie. Store all the crumbs for later and set the hollowed-out cookies aside.
- To make the filling, combine the cookie crumbs, walnut meal, cocoa, rum and jam in a bowl. Mix into a paste. Taste to see if you want to add more jam or cocoa. You need a thick, sticky filling.
- Fill each mushroom cap with a bit of filling (the amount depends on the size of the hole). Then gently stick a stem into the center. Wipe away any excess filling. Set the cookies aside.
- To make the chocolate glaze, place the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and place it over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter melt and the chocolate is smooth and glossy. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Dip the cookies in upside down one by one and lay them on a baking sheet.
- Once all the cookies have been dipped, place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or more until the chocolate has hardened. Do the same with any leftover stems.
Notes
Store the cookies in airtight containers in the refrigerator (put parchment paper in between the layers of cookies), they should last at least a week. They are best served at room temperature.
The mushroom caps might crack a bit as they bake. This should not worry you. Once you dip them in chocolate the cracks are not visible.
You can make the dough a day in advance.
You can substitute walnuts with pecans or hazelnuts.
I like apricot jam because the taste is not overpowering, but you can use any other kind. I think strawberry would work nicely too.
You are so creative! These cookies are way too adorable! Pinning!
Thank you so much Lokness! 🙂
Wow they look really cute. They would look perfect in a Christmas buffet table
Thanks Azu! And I totally agree about the Christmas table, I think they’d fit right in. 🙂
Wow these are so addable and creative! I love the use of different textures for the different aspects of the mushroom!
Thanks Kelsey, I’m glad you noticed all the textures! 🙂
These are adorable!!
Thank you, Aušra!
These look awesome! What a sweet idea for a party.
Thanks Daria. 🙂
I know this is going to sound like a godawful question being that the recipe is called “Walnut mushroom cookies” BUT is there any way to omit the nuts? Its just, i think they’re absolutely adorable and would love to give the recipe a whirl but I’m severely allergic to nuts of all types and I don’t want to destabilize the dough by just removing them.
Either way it looks like a fabulous recipe.
Hi Joan, thanks for your question!
The cookies can be made nut free, and can look very similar to these. What I would do is skip the “stems” dough completely. Make a double batch of “caps” dough and then make both the stems and the caps from that dough. You can add more vanilla beans (from 1-2 pods) which create a spotty texture in a baked cookie. For the filling, just substitute walnuts with more cookie crumbs, or use shredded coconut. You can add another teaspoon of chocolate powder (or cocoa), to get a darker color. Adjust the amount of jam if necessary, in case your filling doesn’t stick together. You could also just make one batch of the “caps” dough, as a test run, to see if the adjustments work for you (and now that I’m writing this, I think I should probably do that too).
I know some people use shredded coconut for the stems too (instead of nuts), but I haven’t actually tried that.
If you do make these, please let me know how it goes, I’d love to hear it. 🙂
Why not make the whole biscuit out of walnut, why only the stems?
Hi Jana,
I’m afraid making the tops out of walnuts could make them crumbly, especially when scooping out part of the cookie.
The tops are more tender and made that way to hold and soak up the filling.
Hope this helps!
Hi Alice,
we have just tried your recipe and we had triple fun of it. First by preparing it, second – it was surprise for one person who is real mushroom lover – and that person was very happily surprised with that present and third – they are really tasty! We just substituted the walnut meal with hazelnut meal. So thank you very much for bringing this recipe to light 🙂 …
Hi Zuzana! Thank you, I’m so happy to hear you had fun making these and that one lucky person got them as a gift.
I’m sure they taste amazing with the hazelnut meal, I should definitely try that out.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
I actually HATE mushrooms! But I think I would love these cookies, they are so cute!!
Well, I think you can now say there actually is a mushroom you like, haha. 🙂
Hi,
I was looking through the recipe and it calls for 50 grams of walnut meal or 2/4 cups. Did you mean 1/2 cup or is there something missing?
Thanks for clarifying.
Melanie
Hi Melanie!
Sorry for confusing you. 2/4 cup is the same amount as 1/2 cup, I guess I was using a 1/4 measuring cup at the time and then wrote it down as such.
Hope this helps.
What’s the conversion for the butter ??
Hi Leeanne! Everything is converted into ounces, but if you find the conversion into sticks more helpful: 70 grams of butter is about 2/3 stick, 150 grams of butter is about 1 1/3 sticks and 60 grams is roughly 1/2 stick.
Hope this is what you had in mind and that it helps you! 🙂
Hi Alice! I am dying to try out this recipe, but wanted to let you know the links to these photos seem broken 🙁 would love to see what other photos you have posted and if there are progress photos in the making process too! Thank you!
Hi Ella!
Oh, that sucks. Have you tried reloading the page? There should be 7 photos in total, I’ve tested the link to the post in different browsers (and on different computers) and everything looks as it should on my end (all the photos are there).
Most of the photos are linked through Dropbox and maybe there was something on their side, which caused the photos not to load.
That’s all I can think of right now. :/ Let me know if reloading the page fixes the problem.
hey
me han encantado voy a probar a hacerlas gracias
What a cute idea! This would be great for a theme party. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Sabrina! And I agree! I think an autumnal / woodsy theme party would be so cool. 🙂
These are adorable! However, I tried making the stems tonight and they flattened outdoor much when i baked them. How do I get them to look like yours?
Hi Jenni,
one idea would be to chill the dough after you make the stems. The butter can soften too much, if you leave them out rolled for too long, so I’d pop them back in the fridge until they harden a bit and then bake them.
However, the bottom side will always be flat, the same as with every cookie.
Hope this helps!
Hi, for the walnut meal would it be better to grind walnuts or would a prepackaged walnut meal work? Not sure if they’d be considered the same thing.
Hi Jocelyn,
you can use walnut meal! It’s a bit drier than freshly ground walnuts, but I think both work here.
Hope this helps!
Hi there –
Few notes on this recipe –
70 grams did not = 4 1/2 tablespoons) white granulated sugar – 70g worked fine
My stems collapsed. Any idea why this may have happened?
Hi, one tablespoon is 15 grams, so 4 1/2 tablespoons would be 67,5 grams, 70 when rounded up as it doesn’t make a difference.
I don’t know why the stems collapsed though, sorry to hear that.