These Perfect Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies are soft, thick, chewy, bakery-style cookies that are one of my most requested recipes ever!
Some of the items linked in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, if you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission.
I was always on the side of cookie dough versus baked cookie, especially when it came to chocolate chip cookies. We used to eat cookie dough by the spoonful when I was a kid (I know, I know, you shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough). But back then, no one really knew the dangers of salmonella like they do now. I always thought the actual dough was better than the baked cookie.
When I first made this recipe years ago when I was still able to eat gluten, it was the absolute best chocolate chip cookie I’d ever had. Yes, I did taste the dough (who can resist?), but surprisingly I loved the baked cookie even more than the dough. Everyone LOVED these cookies when I’d bring them to my kids’ schools, or give them as gifts for teachers, or just share them with friends and family. There was no need for another CCC recipe again once I made them.
Marcel Desaulniers has written several chocolate cookbooks and I have all of them. He’s the master of all things chocolate and so many of his recipes have become family favorites. If you’ve never tried my Gluten Free Chocolate Chunk Cookie Cakes, you must try them soon! They are originally his recipe, made gluten free, and they are beyond anything you’ve ever had before. It’s like a cross between a chocolate chip cookie and a cupcake!!
What Makes Perfect Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies?
In my opinion, what makes a perfect chocolate chip cookie is a really thick cookie, kind of cake-like, or bakery style. But, it has to also be really soft. Think Levain Bakery style cookies.
And unlike most chocolate chip cookie recipes, I don’t load up on the chocolate chips (or chunks). I actually like a little less chocolate in my CCC’s, I think because I like to taste the brown sugary goodness of the cookie itself with a hit of chocolate every now and then. But if you’re all about the chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie, by all means add more!
the ingredients needed to make perfect chocolate chip cookies
- Butter
- Brown sugar
- Kim’s all purpose gluten free flour blend — a store bought blend may be substituted, but hasn’t been tested
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Eggs
- Vanilla
- Dark rum (totally optional)
- Semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or chunks
Tips for making Chocolate Chip Cookies
- There’s more gluten free flour in these cookies than most recipes. That makes for a more cake-like texture and a nice and thick, sturdy cookie (but still soft and gooey).
- Beat the butter and brown sugar very well (at least 4-5 minutes) at medium high to really cream them together and get a nice fluffy texture.
- Make sure to scrape the bowl often when mixing. This should be a rule of thumb in ALL baking.
- If I don’t have, or don’t want to use dark rum, I like to double the vanilla to 2 tbsp. I know it sounds like a lot of vanilla, but is there ever too much vanilla?
- Use a cookie scoop to get large uniform-sized cookies and only put 4-5 cookies on one baking sheet at a time. These are very large cookies.
- For smaller cookies, use a smaller scoop and bake them for a little less time, anywhere from 10-15 minutes (depending on your scoop size). Start checking at 10 minutes.
- The normal bake time for chocolate chip cookies is 350 degrees F. Baking these cookies at 325 degrees for a longer time makes for a less crunchy and softer cookie. Take them out of the oven right at 20 minutes and no longer. They’ll look like they’re not done. Trust me, they’ll be perfect!
- For best results, use my all-purpose flour blend. I haven’t tried these with any other flour blend so I can’t speak for how perfect they’ll be with another blend.
gluten free ccc’s frequently asked questions
You can’t go wrong with the type of chocolate you choose. Semi-sweet is traditional, but be your own chef and change it up a bit of you’d like. Milk chocolate is perfection! Dark chocolate chunks? Heck yes!
Easy peasy! Increase the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake them for 12-15 minutes. The higher temp will make the butter melt faster and create a crisper cookie!
Yes! Use a small cookie scoop (2 tbsp) to scoop cookies onto baking sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes.
Absolutely! Scoop into balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Freeze until solid and then place them in a ziptop freezer bag. Bake them from frozen, although they’ll need a few more minutes in the oven.
The cookies can be kept in an airtight container or ziptop bag at room temperature for 4-5 days.
more chocolate chip and chunk recipes
- Chocolate chip biscotti
- Chocolate chip pie
- Chocolate chunk cookie cakes
- Brown butter chocolate chunk cookies
- Brown butter cookie cake
Bake up these perfect gluten free chocolate chip cookies in no time at all and grab a glass of milk. Your kids will BEG you to make them all the time, just like mine have done for years!
Perfect Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ lb (2 sticks or 1 cup, 226 g) butter, softened
- 2 cups (454 g) tightly packed brown sugar
- 4 cups (560 g) Kim's gluten free flour blend
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp dark rum, optional
- 12 ounces (340 g) milk, semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or chunks
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cream butter and brown sugar on low speed in mixer bowl (stand or handheld) until combined. Increase speed to medium to medium-high and beat for about 4-5 minutes, until very fluffy and light in color. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl.
- On low speed, add eggs, vanilla, and rum (if using) and mix to combine. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl and blend for about 1 minute on medium speed.
- In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. With mixer on low speed, slowly add flour mixture to butter and egg mixture until combined.
- Stir in chocolate chips or chunks by hand or on low speed just until incorporated.
- Using a large scoop, scoop dough and place on parchment-lined sheet pans, only 5-6 per pan (these are very large cookies).
- Bake one sheet at a time at 325 for 18-20 minutes and no longer. Remove sheet pans from oven, but leave cookies on pans for about 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Makes about 15-18 large cookies, depending on the size of your scoop. Serve warm or at room temperature. To serve warm, fresh-baked cookies the next day, place cookie on microwavable plate and microwave for about 20 seconds until chocolate is slightly melted and cookie is warm.
Notes
- Don’t overbake. At 18-20 minutes, they will look like they aren’t completely baked, but there will be some carry over cooking when they’re taken out of the oven. This ensures a soft cookie.
- These can be frozen, either baked or unbaked. To freeze unbaked cookies, scoop dough onto cookie sheets and place in freezer until solid. Remove balls of dough and put into gallon-sized zip top freezer bag. When you want fresh-baked cookies, proceed with recipe as per instructions with frozen cookie dough balls, adding about 5 minutes to baking time.
- I prefer a more balanced cookie to chip ratio, but if you’d like more chips, add up to an additional 12 ounces.
- For the greatest sweet/salty experience, sprinkle tops of scoops of dough with Maldon flake salt before baking.
Adapted from Death By Chocolate Cookies by Marcel Desaulniers
This recipe was originally posted in September 2018 and has been updated with new pictures, copy, and tips, as well as a video.
Kim! Since finding out I couldn’t have gluten there have been so many things that I have missed., especially a good cookie. The store bought stuff is NOT usually a good replacement for the real thing. I have used so many of your recipes, all have come out perfectly. You are amazing. These cookies did not disappoint. In fact I took them to work and everyone said they were the best chocolate chip cookies they have ever had, and they aren’t gluten free. They demanded I bring them again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for doing all the work for us so that we can just make and enjoy!
These are a 5 star cookie! I have been gluten free for years & tried many other recipes, but none compares to yours made with your blends. For anyone who hasn’t tried your flour blends yet, you must use one of Kim’s recommended products & they must be fresh. Use a scale to weigh & follow the directions, they may be different than instructions for regular wheat flour baking. I suspect that the lady above who said the cookies were not good either did not use proper fresh ingredients or is just one of those people that rain on everyone’s parade. My whole family loved these cookies. I am planning to try them with other than chocolate chips, maybe butter scotch & pecans . Great job Kim, Thanks!
I saw that someone named willow commented saying your cookies were disgusting! What a terrible comment to make about a cookie!, I think they owe you an apology!,! ,! Those are excellent cookies & gluten free people should be thankful that you came up with something they could enjoy! Keep on making recipes Kim, we love all your recipes!
Disgusting absolutely disgusting. We were having guests over that we’re gluten free and there was no desert because these cookies were so disgusting.
I’ve had trouble finding a good recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Just using my regular recipe with cup for cup gluten-free flour doesn’t get it. They end up thin, real crunchy and unappetizing. These are PERFECT!!!!! I couldn’t wait to eat one from the first baked batch and it was everything you said it was!
I used cup for cup Namaste flour, made 1.5 batches to which I added 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum because th e flour runs a little softer when cooking things I like. Can’t wait to try the rest of the recipes. Thanks Kim
These turned out great. I missed the part about doubling the vanilla if not using rum so they were lacking a bit in the vanilla department. Since I’m dairy free too, I used coconut milk powder in your flour blend and Country Crock plant based butter in place of butter in the recipe. I used the #30 scoop and this made 4 dozen cookies. Next time I will half the recipe and try it with rum. This will be my go to CCC recipe!
These cookies are so good! I made a few substitutions because we are fairly health conscious and even like our treats to have some redeeming nutritional qualities. 😁 We are also sugar-free. So I used 2 cups of your flour blend and 2 cups of organic GF oats that I ground in the food processor. For the sweetener, I used 2 cups of allulose along with 2 T. of yacon syrup for that rich brown sugar taste. I added Lily’s sugar free white chocolate chips and chopped walnuts to the batter. Totally gluten-free, sugar-free and guilt-free! Thank you for the recipes – I love your Artisan bread too!!
Great recipe Kim, thanks! My husband cannot believe I made these from scratch, at home. He thought I bought them in a bakery. I used cashew milk powder in the flour blend because we do not use cow milk and they turned out just as you wrote. Will be making these for our Christmas party this year for sure. Thank you for taking so much time and effort to produce such wonderful recipes for us GF people 🙂
So glad you (and your husband) liked them! They’re a family favorite 😍
I’ll start with these are delicious- wouldn’t know they are GF. Mine, however, spread REALLY thin. I followed the recipe to the letter-Kerigold butter. I weighed them so they were all the same size. I did go for the crispy at 350°. I do love Levain, but crisp reminds me of growing up . My perfect world would be thicker and crisp-not possible? I do refresh them before eating.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s possible to have crisp AND really thick cookies. As soon as you bump up the temp, the butter will melt faster and, therefore, spread the cookies more. Did you use my flour blend or a store bought blend? That could also be a factor in why your cookies were really thin.
Yes, I used your flour blend(mostly😬)….BUT my white (not sweet)rice flour is Bob’s. I think my mother used Crisco to be dairy free and they were thicker and crisp-that sort of horrifies me now🤭‼️ I meant to try this but I was into much of a hurry… I think I read that Levain refrigerates the dough for three or four days… Have you tried that with your flour blend?
I haven’t, but I haven’t had the need to. I’ve been making these cookies for years (since my kids were little and they’re now in their 20’s) and they always come out thick and everyone raves about them. The Bob’s flour could be the problem. It seems that every time someone substitutes Bob’s in my flour blend, they don’t get the results that were intended in my recipes.
Hi, I made these with coconut sugar, my mixer broke while creaming the butter so I finished them by hand. They are very tasty. In particular, the texture is spot on, I guess that must be the amazing flour you have developed. Thanks for all of your hard work.
Thanks! That’s good to know they can be made with coconut sugar. I’ll have to try that some day 🙂
I came back to let you know that I left half the batter wrapped in cling film in the fridge over night. The next day I baked very small cookies by slicing the log of batter. They came out around 10-15cm across when they had baked, about double the size of them when they were raw, they spread quite a bit. I baked them from solid slices for 13 minutes. I liked them even better than the larger ones and chilling the dough overnight seemed to make the texture better.
This is such a versatile recipe! TexasErin has some interesting things to say about baking with coconut sugar, in particular about chilling the dough for longer as the cookies spread more.
I’ve got the Italian bread in the oven right now and will attach some pictures when its done. I ran out of white rice flour so I used superfine brown rice flour and so far it all looks like your pictures, wish me luck!
That’s so awesome, Bronwyn!! I can’t wait to see pics of your Italian bread 🙂
I was craving for more chocolate so I added 1/4 cup of Cocoa . They were amazing . Thank for so many delicious recipies.
Your fan from Mexico City
Trudy
Thanks Kim!
Also, I have a great Chocolate Crinkle cookie recipe I haven’t been able to make in years. I’m wondering if your flour blend can work as a one cup-for-one cup substitute for other cookie recipes. Do you know?
Thanks again for all of your fantastic recipes! You’re making my holiday baking plans so much more fun than it’s been in years!
Awe, thanks so much, Drina!! I’m so glad my recipes can help you enjoy the holidays again 😍
Yes, I think my flour blend would work great in your cookie recipe 🙂
Thanks Kim. I’ll give it a shot. 🙂
Hi Kim, I just made these cookies and they are fantastic! Thank you again for an amazing GF recipe. 🙂
I’d like to freeze some of these already baked cookies (because I really need to NOT eat them all at once). After defrosting them in the ‘fridge overnight, would you recommend warming them up in the oven or just popping them in the microwave?
Thanks again!
Thanks so much, Drina! I always put mine in the microwave for a few seconds (maybe 10-20?) to reheat them and make the chocolate chips a little melty and gooey (and yummy!) 🙂
Thanks!
Hi Kim,
I can’t wait to try these. I don’t have a cookie scoop so can you tell me, approximately, how big the raw cookie dough balls are? Grams, ounces, tablespoons…whatever is easiest for you. Thanks!
You can make them any size really, but the ones I like the best are the huge cookies and my cookie scoop makes about 1/4 cup size 🙂
I do GF cooking for a friend, and I am constantly experimenting to try to discover palatable recipes without compromise. And I should confess that I am an excellent cook and very picky. Most food blogs in general are a major disappointment (a pet peeve actually…food bloggers who can’t cook). I bake my own “world famous” (well, my small world) chocolate chip cookies with gluten, so the bar was set high. I WANT YOUR READERS TO KNOW THAT THIS RECIPE IS A VERY, VERY GOOD REPLICA OF A GLUTEN-BASED COOKIE. Most people would not be able to tell this is a GF recipe. Excellent cookie texture due to your personal flour recipe without the usual gritty unpleasantness. Well done!
HALF BATCH TIMING: I made half a recipe and formed 12 cookies, baked 6 at a time at 325 degrees for 14 minutes, resting 3 minutes. Perfect. Was tempted to chill the dough and try the usual 350 degrees baking time for cookies, but I resisted the temptation. For those who might wonder, this dough does not require chilling, and the 325 degree temperature produces an excellent and properly baked cookie.
Thank you so much, Cathleen!!!! I really appreciate your input and you taking the time to post such an in-depth review of my cookie recipe 🙂
My family is recently GF and I love to bake. I make cookies every other week for my kids to take to school. I thought the cup for cup flour was my best option, boy was I wrong. Thank you so much for sharing your flour recipe with us. These cookies were the best I have ever made, even before GF. They are not gritty like the cup for cup flour leaves them! Truly amazing! Up next to try is your pizza crust! I cannot wait!!
Jeannine, thank you so much for the kind words! I’m so happy you liked the cookies!! They were a favorite of my kids’ when they were little, too!
I can’t wait for you to try the pizza crust. It has become a family favorite in our house 🙂
If I make these cookies with a smaller scoop should I decrease the amount of time baking them?
Hi, Susan! Yes, I would start checking at about 10 minutes (depending on how small your scoop is). I think Pam makes them smaller than I do so you might ask her how long she bakes them for (she’s been making them about as long as I have, just not gluten free). I would say no more than 15 minutes, but still start checking at 10.
You’re gonna LOVE these cookies!! Makena said they’re the best cookies ever 🙂
These are no joke! I made them and they’re freaking AMAZING!! 👏🏼 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Your recipes NEVER disappointment. Husband said these are the best cookies everrrrrr.
Awe, thank you so much!!!! They are my favorite, too.
Thanks so much for the wonderful comment 😀
Hello, Kim. I’ve been trying to reach you regarding the ratio of ingredients in these chocolate chip cookies. You see, I do not like the taste of sugar on my tongue and after making this recipe for me it is too much sugar I had to actually throw all of the cookies out. They were delicious and crispy as I bake them on 350 for 12 minutes for a much more crunchy cookie but the sugar is entirely too much for me. Is there a way to adjust the sugar content along with anything else to make these much less sweet? I normally adjust my sugar by 1/3 than the recipe calls for but since this is all light brown sugar, I am not sure how I should go about adjusting the sugar and putting much less into the recipe . Thank you.
I’m sorry, Alexander. I honestly don’t know how to reduce the sugar in these cookies. I’ve been making them for over 25 years and I’ve never, ever heard from anyone say there’s too much sugar in them. Unfortunately, reducing sugar is not my forte so if you’re looking for something that is sugar free or reduced sugar, this definitely is not the blog to look. You might do better on another blog that focuses on reduced sugar or keto diets.