Soft and Chewy Brownie Cookies — 🍫🍪❤️ These cookies have the taste and texture of perfect brownies! Soft and tender in the interior with chewy edges. They’re fudgy, dense, and not at all cakey!
Table of Contents
Easy Fudge Brownie Cookies Recipe
These cookies have been on my bucket list for years. I only wish I had checked them off my list sooner, because I loved every fudgy center and chewy-edged bite.
They’re one hundred percent from scratch, no cake mix, no brownie mix, no shortcuts. The recipe is adapted from Donna Hay, who’s been called the Australian Martha Stewart. After converting grams of butter to tablespoons, and using regular granulated sugar in place of superfine caster sugar, I thought I was in for smooth sailing. Wrong.
I tried again with a 54% Dark Chocolate Pound Plus bar from Trader Joe’s, not to be confused with their 72% bar. Because there’s only 2/3 cup of sugar in the entire batch of cookies, I didn’t want to use chocolate that was too dark for fear the cookies would be bitter.
The chocolate intensity and sweetness level of the cookies from the Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate bar (54% chocolate) turned out to be spot-on perfect. Sweet enough, but not too sweet; nor bitter.
The 5 ounces of chopped chocolate that’s added to the batter are unexpected nuggets of bliss. It adds so much intensity and also texture. The cookies are so dark and you can’t see the chocolate, so the chunks really are heavenly surprise bites. The chocolate chunks make the cookies so rich. Like having a mini chocolate candy bar baked into every cookie.
What’s in Brownie Cookies?
To make these chewy chocolate brownie cookies, you’ll need:
- Dark chocolate – Make sure to use a dark chocolate bar, not semi-sweet chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips! Otherwise, you won’t achieve the bold, bittersweet chocolate flavor we want with this recipe
- Unsalted Butter
- Eggs
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Brownie Cookies
For this recipe, you’ll mix the batter similar to how you would prepare brownie batter, and portion it like chocolate chip cookies before baking. Here’s an overview of the process:
- Combine 7 ounces of the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl with the butter, and melt the chocolate mixture, stirring frequently.
- Add the wet ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or an electric hand mixer), and beat until pale and creamy.
- Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, and continue to beat on medium-low speed.
- Let the batter stand at room temperature for about an hour. This eliminates the need to chill in the fridge! Then, portion it into 8 cookie dough balls, and arrange them on prepared baking sheets, leaving space between each cookie. Silpat mats are crucial to prevent spreading and overbaking!
- Bake at 350F until the cookies are puffed up and have a crackly top. The exact baking time will vary depending on your oven. Cool completely on the pan, and enjoy!
Recipe FAQs
Possibly, although the cookie “dough” is so finnicky that you may not want to add any mix-ins. If you’re looking for a fudgy chocolate cookie packed with mix-ins, check out the “Related Recipes” section below the recipe card.
These fudge brownie cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Yes! Once the baked cookies are completely cool, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. I recommend placing a sheet of parchment paper between each cookie to prevent them from clumping together. Thaw in the fridge or at room temperature when you’re ready to serve.
No, chocolate chips will be too sweet. I used a Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pound Plus Bar 54%.
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Soft and Chewy Brownie Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer Fitted with a Paddle Attachment
- 1 Medium (2-inch) Cookie Scoop
- 2 Silpat Mats
- 2 Baking Trays
Ingredients
- 12 ounces dark chocolate from a bar, chopped and divided into 7 ounces and 5 ounces*
- 3 tablespoons butter, I used unsalted
- 2 large eggs
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar, or superfine sugar if available
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder, sifted
Instructions
- In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine 7 ounces of chocolate, butter, and heat to melt, about 1 minute on high power. Stop to stir. Heat in 10-second bursts until mixture can be stirred smooth; set aside to cool briefly.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or use an electric mixer), add the eggs, sugar, vanilla and beat for 5 to 8 minutes on medium speed, or until pale and creamy. (Original recipe recommends beating for 15 minutes, but I saw no changes in the mixture after about 5 minutes and believe 8 minutes is ample).
- Add the flour, baking powder, melted chocolate-butter mixture, and remaining 5 ounces chopped chocolate and mix to combine, about 1 minute on medium-low speed (the machine will make lots of noise and shake from the chopped chocolate).
- Remove the paddle, cover bowl with plasticwrap, and allow to stand at room temperature for about 1 hour in order for batter to firm up (Original recipe suggests 10 minutes but my batter was like chocolate sauce and it needed 1 hour).
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop or small ice cream scoop, scoop out mounds of dough onto Silpat-lined baking trays, placing 8 mounds per tray. Do not crowd them in case your cookies spread a fair amount (mine didn’t but I can foresee it). Allow mounds to remain on trays, uncovered, for about 1 hour before baking to help batter set up more.
- Preheat oven to 350F. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until puffed and cracked (I baked for 9 minutes).
- Allow cookies to cool completely on trays.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Averie – these look perfect! You have so many chocolate cookie and bar recipes posted, I wish I had a collection like that on my blog =). And now I want to try all of them!
I keep trying things til I find something that I love and is the end-all, be-all. Between these the the Quintuple Chocolate Cookies, I am pretty happy now!
This is SOOOO getting pinned now! :)
Thank you!
Brownie cookies are one of my verrrrrry favorite things. In fact, if you added fro yo in there somewhere, this would probably be my favorite dessert of all time! I love how descriptive you are with your instructions! I always have the opposite of the flat cookie problem. With whole wheat flour, and not using much better, my cookies stay suuuuuper puffy, so these actually sound like the perfect thing for me to try!
Well these would cure your puffy problem I think :)
Thank you for detailing your experience on these, Averie. I also would have freaked out if I saw a chocolate smoothie-like batter. I’m glad you mentioned which dark chocolate bar to buy because I only have the 72% dark chocolate in my pantry. I’ll have to buy the 54% bar the next time I am at TJ’s so I can make these!
I used to only keep the 72% around but have recently had use for their “Dark” chocolate which is still plenty dark and not milky in the least and is a good option for when you don’t want something quite as dark.
I get frustrated when I click on a recipe and it calls for “one box of brownie mix” or “one box of cornbread mix,” That’s not a recipe! It bugs me. I LOVE that these are real life, from scratch, actual recipe cookies. Love.
And many times the cake mix or boxed mix recipes/sites have huge followings. I have been there and used plenty of cake mix in my life and in my older recipes and nothing against it; it works. But I really try hard the past year or so to not post anything with a mix and to push my own envelope and develop my own from-scratch recipes or adapt those I see to suit me.
These look fabulous, as usual Averie. It’s funny because I use chocolate chips a lot for melting, and usually don’t have a problem, except eeeeeevery once in a while. It’s too bad because they’re so darned convenient!
Now do you do it with or without the presence of butter? Without butter, I am fine. But throw in just a drop of butter and it’s seize city. Ugh!
These brownie cookies look so decadent! They will be made, I promise you that :)
When I was writing this post I had just got on a little pinfest and had pinned that one chocolate hot fudge crazy decadent looking recipe of yours and was really hoping that would appear in front of my face, too :)
1. Totally agree about baking puffy cookies with Silpat. 2. Now I know why my brownie cookies were flat and crispy! :) 3. I will take a dozen of these, pretty please. :) Pinning!
If you’re not using a Silpat for things like this and you have even moderately decent results, you will look like a superstar if you try them with a Silpat, Anna. Seriously you will just loooooove the results 100x more! Thanks for the pin!
I think I need a half dozen of these right now, for taste-testing purposes :).
So much chewy goodness in here!
The measly 1/4 cup flour speaks to how fudgy these brownie cookies are and this recipe is the exact excuse I needed to run out and get myself a slip mat!
I love that the ingredient list is so simple — that really tells me how positively fudgy and indulgent these brownie cookies must be!
how positively fudgy and indulgent = YES! That is it right there!
MMM…brownies + cookies + dark chocolate = my favorite!
My mouth is watering, these cookies are perfection! You had me at fudgy center and chewy edge ;) can’t wait to try this one
I appreciate you pointing out that these cookies have a tendency to spread without using a Silpat and also that they are not for people who can’t make “puffy” cookies. I always end up with cookies that spread, which I think is due to a)I tend to veganize cookie recipes and b)no Silpat.
I do love brownies, especially the edge pieces with the chewy crust. These cookies look like they would all taste like edge pieces.
No egg to bind/veganized cookies AND no Silpat..yes would be a recipe for a disaster here! But I am not here to convince anyone anymore. I’d rather be upfront and tell people what’s what than have them write to me all mad and frustrated on the back end when they have a fail or dont get the results they wanted. Not everything is ‘fast and easy’ and this is that recipe :)
Yummm. I have made a gluten-free version of brownie cookies but I really should make a regular kind soon, preferably these ;-)