Rich and chocolatey, but never fudgy, these double gluten free chocolate cookies have melted chocolate and cocoa powder, plus chocolate chips.

These aren't brownie or fudge cookies. They're double chocolate chippers, and they're delightful. But first, a few words about cookies…

For most of my baking life, like most people, cookie season was around the November and December holidays. It wasn't like I didn't bake cookies other times during the year, of course. Don't be ridiculous.

But the real intense cookie-baking was always during the holidays. Now, it's still early enough in the year that I can remember how much better I felt eating less sugar after the new year.

Now, it's still early enough in the year that I can remember how much better I felt eating less sugar around the New Year. But I have come to believe that my freezer must always be stocked with cookies. There is a simple reason for this…

Cookies make the best:

• hostess gifts;
• personal “just-a-little-something” dessert;
• way to soothe a child's broken heart—which always happens when you least expect it;
• last minute thank-you gift.

Ingredients and substitutions

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

My favorite dairy-free butter substitute is butter-flavored Spectrum nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. It has less moisture than butter, but Earth Balance buttery sticks have way, way more moisture. Using Earth Balance tends to lead to cookies that spread quite a lot during baking.

Eggs

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 e

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.

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.

P.S. Looking for the “regular” version of these? Try my thick and chewy gluten free chocolate chip cookies. ?

These amazingly chewy vanilla gluten free cake mix cookies are made with just 4 ingredients. And they're not even cake-like at all!

What's the difference between a cake and cookies?

Most baked goods have very similar ingredients, namely butter/oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla for wet ingredients and flour, baking powder/soda, and salt for dry ingredients. If you'd like to make something chocolate flavored, there will almost certainly be some unsweetened cocoa powder added—and some of the butter or oil may be replaced with melted chocolate.

So what makes one recipe into a cake and another into a cookie? The balance of these basic ingredients is typically what makes the difference. Plus, a cake will have added liquid like milk or water, and the cookies won't.

Why start with a cake mix?

During the holiday season, I make many, many dozens of cookies. But cookies are by far the easiest dessert to throw together when someone's had a bad day and needs a pick-me-up. Starting with a cake mix means that I can have cookies baked in less than 10 minutes longer than the time it takes for them to bake in the oven.

In my second cookbook, Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy, I have a whole chapter on make-your-own baking mixes. I promise I understand that the whole point of purchasing a ready-made cake mix is the convenience, though!

But it can be difficult to find a really good quality boxed gluten free cake mix, mostly because the flours tend to be gritty and the blends unbalanced (the same issue with most ready-made and available all purpose gluten free flour blends). But if you have one that you love, use that! Just make sure that it's a full 16 ounces of mix.

What other cookies can you make from a cake mix?

You can make almost any flavor of drop cookie from a cake mix. If you'd like to make chocolate cookies, you'll start with a chocolate cake mix. I haven't tried this particular recipe with a chocolate cake mix, but I bet it would work well.

My first cookie made from a cake mix is these cheesecake cookies, and they remain one of my favorite cookies of all time. With a few other tweaks, I was able to make those into chocolate cheesecake cookies, too.

Most cake mix cookies are, well, cakey since they begin with a cake mix—and a cake mix tends to have a fair amount of chemical leavener in it. But these cookies have just the right amount of butter and eggs added. Bake them just right (not too long!) and you've got perfectly chewy cookies—in 15 minutes flat. ⏱

Ingredients and substitutions

Dairy-free: The vanilla cake mix that forms the base of these cake mix cookies contains dairy in the form of buttermilk powder. If you need to be dairy-free, I have had success replacing that powder with finely ground blanched almond flour in an equal amount, by weight.

To replace the butter in this recipe, I'd try half Earth Balance buttery sticks and half Spectrum brand nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. The miniature M&Ms contain dairy, but could easily be replaced by another dairy-free mix-in, like Enjoy Life miniature chocolate chips.

Most varieties (including plain and mini) of M&Ms are gluten free in the U.S. If they're not gluten free where you live, try using any other mix-in you like. Chocolate chips (regular or mini) would be great.

Egg-free: I haven't tried replacing the eggs in this recipe, but since there are only 2 eggs you can try replacing each with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon finely ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). Since this is such a simple recipe, though, I'm not sure how well it would work.

These soft and chewy cheesecake cookies are made by dressing up a vanilla cake mix with cream cheese and eggs. The chocolate chips are optional, but highly recommended!

I don't know about you, but I'll choose cookies over cake if I'm given a choice. Unless that cake is, in fact, cheesecake. To be fair, though, a cheesecake isn't really a cake in the traditional sense, is it? It doesn't matter at all, though, since cheesecake cookies are the best of everything. The end.

Cheesecake Cookies have all the gorgeous decadence of cheesecake. They're pillow-soft, smooth and rich, but they still have all the fun of a cookie. And they are, seriously, ready to eat in 20 minutes flat. How's that for easy?

I've been making these ridiculously easy cookies since at least 2010, when I developed the recipe for my second cookbook, Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick and Easy. In that cookbook, there's an entire chapter (Chapter 8) on make-your-own dessert mixes. One of those mixes is for a make-your-own vanilla cake mix, which I've since shared here on the blog.

Cake mixes

Cake mixes are the sort of thing that I never really understood until I wrote that cookbook. I mean, what's so hard about throwing together a few basic dry cake ingredients like flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar? And then I finally realized that cake mixes offered certainty. Everything was measured precisely. So when you add the eggs, maybe some oil and some water, you'll get the same cake every single time.

If you'd like to make this recipe with a boxed vanilla cake mix (gluten free or not!), it will work. And I will not judge you! But if you'd like to make your own cake mix, you can do that too. You just need a simple digital food scale (you can find a link to one in my online shop), and my cake mix recipe.

Watch how to make these Easy Cheesecake Cookies (45 Second Video)

Ingredients and Substitutions

As always, unless I specifically indicate otherwise, I haven't tried this recipe with any of these substitutions. They're simply my best-educated guesses, designed to help those of you who have other dietary restrictions still enjoy some amazing recipes.

Dairy-Free: I'm not gonna lie—there's a whole lot of dairy in these cheesecake cookies. Replacing the butter is easy enough (I think Spectrum nonhydrogenated butter-flavored vegetable shortening would work great), but then there's the matter of the cream cheese.

There are plenty of nondairy cream cheeses on the market, but none taste just like the “real thing” to me. My make-your-own vanilla cake mix also contains dairy in the form of buttermilk powder, but in that recipe, you can replace the buttermilk powder with an equal amount, by weight, of coconut milk powder or blanched finely ground almond flour.

Egg-Free: My standard substitute recommendation for eggs is a “chia egg” (mix 1 tablespoon ground chia seeds with 1 tablespoon lukewarm water and allow it to gel) for each actual egg. Since this recipe is so super simple, I'm honestly not sure how it would work here, though.