Rich and chocolatey, but never fudgy, these double gluten free chocolate cookies have melted chocolate and cocoa powder, plus chocolate chips.
WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?
We'll send the recipe to your inbox, so you can come back to it later!
What makes these gluten free chocolate cookies special?
These aren't brownie or fudge cookies. They're double chocolate chip cookies, and they're delightful. Soft and a little fudgy in the center, a little bit crispy on the edges, and chewy all the way through, these gluten free chocolate cookies have lots of depth of chocolate flavor.
Rather than just adding cocoa powder to our “regular” gluten free chocolate chip cookies, we've added both cocoa powder and melted chocolate to the batter. Baking with melted chocolate, and not just cocoa powder, adds a smooth, creamy texture and a certain richness.
We shape them into rounds of dough to bake the cookies, and then bang the baking sheet flat on the counter halfway through baking to flatten them a bit and give them crackled appearance on top. If we were to flatten them into disks before putting them in the oven, the cookies would end up about the same size, but the tops would be missing that lovely cratered texture.
How to make gluten free chocolate cookies
Melt the chocolate and butter.
- Melt chopped dark chocolate together with butter, either in the microwave in a few 30-second bursts (at less than full power so we don’t burn the chocolate), or over a double boiler.
- Let the chocolate mixture cool a bit.
Make the cookie dough.
- In a large mixing bowl, place one of my recommended gluten free flour blends (with xanthan gum), Dutch-processed cocoa powder (if possible, it really does taste richer and less chalky!), salt, baking soda, and granulated sugar. Whisk to combine well.
- Add some brown sugar, and mix to combine. Be sure to use the back of your mixing spoon to break up the unavoidable lumps in your brown sugar by pressing the lumps against the side of the mixing bowl.
- Make a well in the center of the ingredients in the mixing bowl, and add the beaten eggs and vanilla. Mix until all of the dry ingredients are moistened with the wet. With clean, dry hands, knead together the last dry bits into the cookie dough. This is a thick, relatively stiff cookie dough, since we don’t want the cookies to spread too much.
- Add most of the chocolate chips or disks (reserve a few for placing on top of the raw cookies), and mix until they’re in equal parts throughout the cookie dough. We don’t want some cookies with lots of chips, and some with almost none.
Shape the raw cookie dough.
- Pull off pieces of cookie dough about 2 teaspoonsful, and roll them each into a ball between the palms of your hands.
- Press about 3 chips into the top of each ball of cookie dough, and place them about 2 inches apart on a lined baking sheet.
Bake the cookies.
This part is going to be a bit more active than you're used to. We're going to interrupt the baking halfway through to done some pan banging.
- Bake at 325°F for 8 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and, working quickly and holding the pan firmly with oven mitts on each of the two short sides of the pan, bang it firmly on a heat-safe flat surface. The cookies will develop some fault lines.
- Return the pan to the oven and continue to bake for about another 5 minutes, or until they are no longer shiny in the center. Since the cookies are so dark in color, you can’t tell doneness from browning around the edges of the cookie. If the center of any of the cookies glistens in the light, they’re not quite done yet.
- Remove the pan from the oven and let the cookies sit for at least 5 minutes so they can set up a bit. Transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling before serving.
Gluten free chocolate cookies ingredients and substitution suggestions
No recipe on my blog would ever be complete without some discussion of substitutions. Am I right?
Well, I haven't tested these gluten free chocolate chocolate chip cookies with many substitutions. But here are my best educated guesses:
Dairy free chocolate cookies
My favorite dairy-free butter substitute is vegan butter made by either Miyoko's Kitchen or Melt brand. Avoid using Earth Balance buttery sticks because they have way, way more moisture than butter. Using Earth Balance tends to lead to cookies that spread quite a lot during baking.
Egg free chocolate cookies?
I haven't tested this recipe with any egg substitutes, but in my limited experience I have found that any recipe with two or fewer eggs can handle an egg substitute relatively well. I think it's worth trying.
My favorite egg substitute is a “chia egg,” which is simply 1 tablespoon of ground chia seeds mixed with 1 tablespoon of lukewarm water. Allow the mixture to sit until it gels, and then include it in the recipe where eggs are mentioned, one for one.
About Dutch-processed cocoa powder
Dutch cocoa powder is richer than natural cocoa powder, but either one will work in this recipe. If you can get your hands on Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder, which is a mixture of the two types, use that. It's also quite dark in color, which makes for a truly beautiful cookie.
Chips
Use whatever sort of chips you like! Since the melted chocolate in the batter is dark, it's kind of nice to use milk chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet.
White chocolate chips would also be nice, or even peanut butter chips. Dark chocolate disks make for a slightly fancier-looking cookie.
FAQs
If you don't interrupt the cookie baking to bang the pan on the counter, your cookies will just be a lot thicker and won't have the same crackly top. If you don't want to bang the pan, try pressing the balls of cookie dough into disks, rather than leaving them as rounds. You may have to bake the cookies for another minute or two to get them to bake through to the center.
You don't have to use Dutch-processed cocoa powder, but it's just so much richer than natural cocoa powder. Hershey's natural cocoa powder is kind of starchy and chalky, and less rich, than cocoa powder that has been “Dutch-processed,” and Dutch processed cocoa powder has a higher percentage of cocoa butter. Natural cocoa powder is acidic, too, but there's enough baking soda to alkalize the acidity in natural cocoa powder, if that's what you choose to use here.
Chocolate chips have stabilizers which help them keep their shape in the oven, and prevent them from melting smoothly. They will melt, but the melted chocolate will be stiffer and so will the cookies.
Yes! You can freeze this cookie dough. Form the raw cookie into balls, and then freeze them on a baking sheet before piling them into a freezer-safe bag and storing them until you're ready to bake. Let the cookie dough defrost before baking them, though, or they won't flatten properly in the oven.
Sure! You can use whatever sort of chocolate chips you like to mix in to the cookie dough. You can replace them with chopped nuts, too, if that's what you'd prefer.
No! You can mix them all right into the cookie dough. The chips on top just make the cookies like pretty.
Gluten Free Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
- 4 ounces dark chocolate chopped
- 7 tablespoons (98 g) unsalted butter
- 2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter; please click thru for full info on appropriate blends)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)
- ¼ cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch-processed is best)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- ¾ cup (164 g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 (100 g (weighed out of shell)) eggs at room temperature, beaten
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate disks or chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325°F.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.
Melt the chocolate and butter.
- In a small, heat-safe bowl, place the chopped bittersweet chocolate and the butter.
- Melt until smooth by placing in a double boiler or microwaving in 45 second intervals at 60% power, stirring in between intervals.
- Set the melted chocolate aside to cool briefly.
Make the cookie dough.
- In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and granulated sugar, and whisk to combine well.
- Add the brown sugar, and mix to combine, working out any lumps.
- Add the melted and cooled chocolate and butter, plus the eggs and vanilla, and mix to combine.
- Add about 7 ounces of the chocolate chips to the cookie dough, and mix until they're evenly distributed throughout it
- With clean, dry hands, knead the cookie dough until it comes comes together and is chunky, not crumbly.
Shape the cookie dough.
- Pull off pieces of cookie dough about 2 teaspoonsful in volume.
- With wet hands, shape each piece of dough into a ball and place the pieces about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Press 2 or 3 of the remaining chocolate chips into the top of each disk of cookie dough.
Bake the cookies.
- Place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven. Bake for 8 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and, holding it securely on each short side above a heat-safe flat surface, bang the tray down hard 4 or 5 times, or until the cookies have begun to crack on top a bit.
- Return the baking tray to the oven and bake for another 4 to 5 minutes, or until the cookies are are just set in the center.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven a final time, and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?
We'll send the recipe to your inbox, so you can come back to it later!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi, I’m Nicole. I create gluten free recipes that really work and taste as good as you remember. No more making separate meals when someone is GF, or buying packaged foods that aren’t good enough to justify the price. At Gluten Free on a Shoestring, “good, for gluten free” just isn’t good enough! Come visit my bio!
Sue says
Can we reduce the sugar amount?
Nicole Hunn says
I’m afraid the recipe only works as written, Sue. You can’t reduce sugar in a recipe and have it turn out the same. Sugar isn’t only a sweetener, it’s also a tenderizer.
Betty Van Horn says
What kind of chocolate are you using. Sweetened, unsweetened, semisweet?
Nicole Hunn says
The recipe calls for dark chocolate, Betty. Dark chocolate is sweetened chocolate that has little or no milk solids. It is never unsweetened. A good recipe that calls for unsweetened chocolate would always specify that.
Rosie says
These look just like the ones my grandma used to make… I think that means you ‘ve nailed it!
Nicole Hunn says
I think so, too, Rosie. :)
Three Brits says
Must must must try these out, love chocolate and these sound amazing!!
Rebekah says
Hi! I started following your newsletter about a month ago and I wondered if you are planning on doing more non-chocolate items. I don’t like chocolate, though I know a lot of people do, and most of the recipes I see for GF stuff are chocolate.
Thanx!
Nicole Hunn says
There are 850+ recipes on the blog, Rebekah. Feel free to have a look around!
Sloluckystyle says
Wow, easy to make and they turned out perfect…and so delicious. Thank you. My son and I love these. Very chocolatey taste, not sugary or fudgy….perfect. And the dough is tasty too :-)
Susan says
I can’t wait to try them, they look yummy. Are the recipes in your blog in your cookbooks. I have the first one and getting the 2nd for christmas? Thanks
Marilyn says
My husband loves you!!!!
JoAnn C. says
Wow! Wow! Wow! And Thank You!!!
gfshoestring says
Oh, JoAnn, I knew you would like these. Wait ’till you make them. :)
xoxo Nicole
Jennifer S. says
Yum – i love you (even if my waist does not!)
gfshoestring says
Your waist loves me, Jennifer, in moderation. :)
xoxo Nicole
Dana Schwartz says
Oh, these are a chocoholics dream! Yum! How I wish I lived close enough to be cookie’d by you. But since I’m not I’ll happily be virtually cookie’d instead. Thanks for another great recipe!
So, I bought those white and red striped minty Hershey kisses for your choco thumbprints? Um, good thing I bought 2 bags is all I have to say.
Q – what brand chocolate chips do you use?
gfshoestring says
You’re allllllmost close enough to be cookie’d by me, Dana. Here’s a promise: if I ever know I’m going to meet you, I’ll bring you cookies.
For chips, I almost always use Nestle. They’re not top shelf, but they’re reliable and GF and good. :)
xoxo Nicole