If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you’re going to love these butterscotch butterbeer cookies loaded with white chocolate and butterscotch chips! Make them for Christmas, a movie night, book clubs, or a wizard-themed birthday party. These soft pudding cookies are irresistible!
If you’ve been to the Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter then you know what I’m talking about! Butterbeer is amazing. It’s a carbonated drink made with vanilla and butterscotch icecream, cream soda, and butterscotch whipped cream. It’s rich, sweet, and everyone loves it!
I love Harry Potter books, movies, and costumes so much that I decided to make butterbeer cookies to celebrate all things Harry Potter! These are also loaded with butterscotch flavor, and I make them with instant pudding mix that produces a soft and flavorful cookie!
Themed cookies of all types are super fun! Try making blue Cookie Monster Cookies, or witchy Hocus Pocus Cookies too.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Butterbeer Flavor! This recipe tastes very similar to Harry Potter’s butterbeer drink. If you’ve read Harry Potter’s books then you know that butterscotch is one of butterbeer’s ingredients and this cookie recipe has it all! Vanilla, butterbeer, and white chocolate.
- Harry Potter’s Fans. If you have a friend whose obsessed with Harry Potter, bake them a batch and give it as a gift. They will LOVE it!
- Pudding Cookies. You probably already know how much I love making cookies with instant pudding mix, it produces a soft and delicious cookie. You should also try my Pistachio Pudding Cookies, Banana Pudding Cookies, Pumpkin Pie Spice Cookies, and Double Chocolate Pudding Cookies.
Key Ingredients
Complete list of ingredients with quantities and instructions is located in the recipe card below
- Butterscotch Pudding Mix: Make sure that you’re getting instant pudding rather than “cook & serve” pudding mix that won’t work here.
- Butter, Eggs, and Sugars: I use unsalted butter, 2 large eggs that are brought to room temperature, and a combination of light brown and granulated white sugar.
- White Chocolate Chips: Do not skip these! They go so well with the butterscotch flavor.
- Butterscotch Chips: For more butterbeer flavor! These can be found at any large supermarket in the baking section.
How to Make Butterbeer Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- In a large bowl, using a handheld or stand mixer beat the butter until creamy (30 seconds). Add sugar and beat until well combined (3-4 minutes).
- Add eggs, vanilla extract, and butterscotch pudding mix, and beat until the eggs are well incorporated.
- In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). Mix that with the wet ingredients until just combined.
- Fold in the white chocolate chips.
- Using a small cookie scoop (1.5 tablespoon size), scoop out cookie balls onto a cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake in a preheated oven for 12 minutes or until the bottom of the cookie is lightly browned.
- Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely
Recipe Tips
- Measure Out the Flour Correctly. To do that, spoon the flour into a measuring cup and then level the top of the cup with the flat edge of a butter knife. I don’t recommend sifting the flour before measuring, that will add too much air and we don’t want that in this cookie recipe.
- Use Instant Pudding: Avoid the “cook and serve” pudding mix because it won’t work the same way in the recipe, get the instant pudding mix instead.
- Be Careful Not to Overbake the Cookies: You want to remove the butterbeer pudding cookies from the oven just as they start to brown at the bottom, baking them for too long will make them crunchy and dry.
Storing Tips
You can store these butterbeer pudding chocolate chip cookies for up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature, no need to chill them. If the cookies start to get stale, put a piece of white bread in the container with them. The bread will dry out, but the cookies will stay perfectly soft and chewy.
You can also freeze baked cookies, and store them in a ziploc bag or freezer container for up to 3 months! You can enjoy them frozen, let them thaw on the counter, or warm them up in the microwave.
FAQs
These cookies taste like vanilla, and butterscotch and have a caramel-ey flavor. They are soft in the centers and have slightly crispy edges.
If you go back to Harry Potter’s books, butterbeer is made with butterscotch, sugar, and water. At Universal Studios they make the drink with ice cream.
Make these cookies for your next Harry Potter themed party, or movie night! I know that you’re going to love them!
Harry Potter’s Butterbeer Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 200g) unsalted butter softened
- ½ cup (100g) light brown sugar lightly packed
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 3-ounce package butterscotch instant pudding mix
- 2 ½ cups (300g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white chocolate baking chips
- 1 cup butterscotch chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- In a large bowl, using a handheld or stand mixer beat the butter until creamy (30 seconds). Add sugar and beat until well combined (3-4 minutes).
- Add eggs, and butterscotch pudding mix, and beat until the eggs are well incorporated.
- In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt). Mix that with the wet ingredients until just combined.
- Fold in the white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips.
- Using a small cookie scoop (1 tablespoon size), scoop out cookie balls onto a cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake in a preheated oven for 12 minutes or until the bottom of the cookie is lightly browned.
- Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- To Store: You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. To keep soft cookies soft, store them with a piece of white bread. The bread might dry out, but the cookies will stay perfect.
- To freeze baked cookies: Place them in a freezer bag or airtight container. Freeze for up to three months. Enjoy them frozen, let them thaw first, or pop them in the microwave for a few seconds to warm them up!
- To freeze unbaked cookies: Follow the recipe and stop at the point where you make the cookie balls. Fill a sheet tray with them, and then place the tray of dough balls in the freezer for an hour. After an hour, transfer the frozen cookie dough to a freezer bag or container. You can freeze cookie dough balls for up to three months.
- To bake frozen cookies: You can bake the dough balls directly from frozen. Add 1-2 minutes to the cooking time (bake for 13-15 minutes).
- Sugar-free pudding mix can be substituted for regular pudding mix if desired.
- Be sure to use instant pudding, not “cook and serve”.
- Before baking, top each cookie with a few extra chocolate chips and crushed pistachios so they will look as good as they taste.
- If you use a small cookie scoop (1 tablespoon), you will get 60 cookies.
Nutrition
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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Comments & Reviews
Carm says
We don’t get Butterscotch pudding here so what do you suggest? Vanilla ? I tried Butterbeer at Universal and it was terrible yuck 🤮. These look and sound good 👍
Diana says
This is a pudding cookie so I can’t suggest anything else to substitute it with, unfortunately.
Beverly says
Have you ever bought anything off Amazon they might have
butterscotch pudding. If you can’t find it I would just use
vanilla pudding and add extra butterscotch chips to it
I haven’t tried the recipe yet myself but I’m hoping to try it
I wish you luck 🤞
Becky says
Made these and everyone absolutely loved them! The only thing is in the list of ingredients there is 1 tsp vanilla but instructions don’t mention when to mix it in. I added it in on step 2.
Patsy says
Recipe only calls for white chips but everything else says to also use butterscotch chips???
Diana says
Thanks for the heads up, I just added the butterscotch chips to the list.