These high altitude flourless chocolate brownie cookies come together with just a few simple ingredients. The cookies are rich, fudgy and gluten free, with all the flavor of your favorite fudge brownies, and the prettiest shiny crackly tops.
You might also love these high altitude gluten free recipes for flourless chocolate cake, flourless almond cake, and flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
This site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means that I may make a small commission if you purchase a product using those links. This in no way affects my opinion of those products and services. All opinions expressed on this site are my own.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Double Chocolate. A combination of melted semi sweet chocolate and Dutch-processed cocoa powder gives these flourless chocolate cookies a rich, deep, intensely chocolatey flavor and wonderful texture.
Gluten Free. With no flour or grain-based ingredients, these cookies are naturally gluten free. If gluten is not an issue for you, you’ll love my original chocolate brownie cookies (made with flour), which are thick, soft, chewy and fudgy.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Chocolate. You’ll need either chocolate chips or a bar of good quality chocolate, although during recipe testing, I had more success using melted chocolate chips. I used Kirkland brand semi-sweet chocolate chips, which contain 51% cacao. Anything between 50-60% will work for this recipe. When I tested this recipe with 70% Lindt chocolate, I wasn’t happy with the way the crackled tops looked, likely due to the lower amount of sugar in the chocolate.
- Cocoa Powder. I only bake with Dutch processed cocoa powder, and I used Cacao Barry Extra Brute.
- Unsalted Butter.
- Eggs.
- Granulated Sugar.
- Salt.
- Vanilla Extract.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line two large baking sheets (15×20 inches) with parchment paper.
- In a saucepan, combine the chocolate chips and butter. Melt the chocolate and butter over medium low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth. Remove from the heat.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or using a hand held electric mixer), beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed for several minutes until pale, foamy, increased in volume and thick with a “ribbony” texture.
- Add the melted chocolate and butter to the egg mixture and whisk until combined.
- Add the sifted cocoa powder, vanilla and salt, and whisk until combined. The batter will be fairly thin, like brownie batter, not thick like cookie dough.
- Set the bowl of batter in the refrigerator to chill and slightly thicken for just 10 minutes.
- Use a medium cookie scoop with a release lever (with a 2 tbsp capacity) to scoop the batter into dollops on the prepared baking sheets. Leave 3-4 inches between each, so the cookies have room to spread.
- Bake one pan of cookies (with the other pan resting at room temperature) for about 10-11 minutes, until the cookies have spread and the tops crackled. Immediately after taking the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter to “scoot” it around the cookies, pulling the edges in for perfectly circular cookies.
- Cool the cookies on the pan for 10-15 minutes until set, then gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. As the cookies cool, they will settle and flatten so the cooled cookies are fairly thin.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Both chopped chocolate and chocolate chips will work in this recipe; however, I preferred the results with chocolate chips, as the crackled tops looked prettier.
Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
For this particular recipe, making a thicker flourless chocolate cookie turned out to be trickier than I thought it would be at high altitude. In testing the recipe multiple times, each time I reduced the sugar or increased the cocoa powder to create a thicker cookie that didn’t spread as much, it went the complete opposite direction, and didn’t spread or crackle nearly enough. So in the end, I decide to embrace the thinness of these cookies. But, in spite of their thinness, they’re incredibly moist and fudgy.
You Might Also Like
Please check out my Amazon Shop for a curated collection of some of my favorite cake pans from trusted brands, baking tools, ingredients, pretty things and fashion finds. I recommend products that I buy and use every day!
Did you love today’s recipe? Please rate the recipe and let me know in the comments what you thought! Also, be sure to follow Curly Girl Kitchen on Instagram, and tag me when you try one of my recipes so I can see all your delicious creations!
High Altitude Flourless Chocolate Brownie Cookies (GF)
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
- Large Baking Sheets + Parchment Paper (15×20 inches)
- Medium Cookie Scoop with Release Lever (2 tbsp capacity)
Ingredients
- 5 oz (3/4 cup) semi sweet chocolate chips (50-60% cacao) or chopped chocolate (see notes)
- 5 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- â…” cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder, sifted
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line two large baking sheets (15×20 inches) with parchment paper.
- In a saucepan, combine the chocolate chips and butter. Melt the chocolate and butter over medium low heat, stirring frequently, until smooth. Remove from the heat.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or using a hand held electric mixer), beat the eggs and sugar on medium speed for several minutes until pale, foamy, increased in volume and thick with a "ribbony" texture.
- Add the melted chocolate and butter to the egg mixture and whisk until combined.
- Add the sifted cocoa powder, vanilla and salt, and whisk until combined. The batter will be fairly thin, like brownie batter, not thick like cookie dough.
- Set the bowl of batter in the refrigerator to chill and slightly thicken for just 10 minutes.
- Use a medium cookie scoop with a release lever (with a 2 tbsp capacity) to scoop the batter into dollops on the prepared baking sheets. Leave 3-4 inches between each, so the cookies have room to spread.
- Bake one pan of cookies (with the other pan resting at room temperature) for about 10-11 minutes, until the cookies have spread and the tops crackled. Immediately after taking the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter to "scoot" it around the cookies, pulling the edges in for perfectly circular cookies.
- Cool the cookies on the pan for 10-15 minutes until set, then gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. As the cookies cool, they will settle and flatten so the cooled cookies are fairly thin.
Notes
https://curlygirlkitchen.com/
They’re almost perfect because they taste delicious but they don’t have cracked tops and aren’t crispy, just soft
Did you use chocolate chips or chopped chocolate? I noted in the recipe that I had the best results and prettiest crackled tops when using melted semi sweet chocolate chips. If you use a different type of chocolate, your results will not be the same as mine.
Thanks for getting back to me! I’ll definitely try that, but in general my cookies always come out super thick and cake-like, including this recipe. I live in Colorado. Do you have any idea why? Could it be something to do with my oven temperature? I’m wondering if I have to adjust either my baking time or increase oven temp
In general, thick and cakey cookies can result from too much flour (although this recipe is flourless), but also from too much baking powder or too much egg. Too much sugar causes excessive spreading and thin cookies, while too little sugar results in thicker cookies that don’t spread enough. If you’re not at the same altitude as I am (5400 feet), you likely need to do some adjustments to perfect my recipes for your altitude: https://curlygirlkitchen.com/baking-faqs/
Wow!!! Okay so I adjusted three things in order for them to come out better (btw I’m at 5,280ft). Used semi-sweet chocolate chips, raised temperature to 375 F, and used a small spoon to slightly flatten the batter on each scoop. Now they’re beautifully flat, cracked, moist in the middle and crispy on the outside! Amazing. Thank you so much for crafting such a beautiful recipe, especially gluten free!