The title essentially says it all. Having trouble deciding between making cookies or making brownies? Your problem is now solved – bake these beauties up and you get the best of both worlds. This is yet another installment of cookies I made as a result of the Top 10 list you all helped me create. I have loved trying new cookie recipes each week, and with this being the next to last recipe (next week is ginger cookies!), I’m going to have to come up with another food genre to get input on. Any ideas? Maybe favorite recipes with summer fruits, ice cream flavors, ethnic dish or something like that? Feel free to throw out some suggestions.
Now we must get back to talking about these cookies. They are not for the faint of heart, and if you are only a fair-weather chocolate fan, these will either fully convert you or may be too much for you. Since I am an all-chocolate-all-the-time chocolate fan, it goes without saying that these cookies razzled and dazzled me to the point of wanting to hide them from others. I didn’t really hide them, but I was tempted. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to stash a few of these in the freezer for when chocolate hunger pangs strike. A quick turn in the microwave and you will be beyond satisfied.
I tried to determine if I really think these cookies are better than brownies. That, of course, required serious research. Research, in this case, would be defined as taste testing. And the result is – I just can’t choose. These cookies are rich, delicious and are like a jolt of espresso for your taste buds. But brownies, oh brownies. In all of their dense, fudgy glory and endless variations… they just can’t be replaced. So, be prepared to make these, love them, and then alternate between them and your favorite brownie when you can’t decide if you want a cookie or brownie.
I’m normally not a cookie dunker, but these were absolutely superb dunked in a glass of cold milk. So pour yourself a tall glass and enjoy! (And then come back and let me know if you think these really are better than brownies!)
More chocolatey goodness:
Chocolate Ice Cream
No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Oatmeal Cookies
Chipster-Topped Brownies
Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Brownies
French Chocolate Brownies
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Better-than-Brownies Chocolate Cookies
Makes 24 large cookies
2 2/3 cups (about 16 ounces) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper of a silicone baking mat.
2. Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set it over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally, until completely melted and smooth.
3. In the meantime, stir together the eggs, vanilla and sugar in a medium bowl. Set aside.
4. In a small bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder.
5. Add the melted chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and stir to combine well. Slowly add the dry ingredients, folding them into the batter. Once all of the flour is incorporated, stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Scoop 1½ tablespoons of dough (a medium cookie scoop’s worth) onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are firm on the outside. Like brownies, do not overbake! Leave to cool completely on the baking sheets.
(Adapted from Culinography)
See more: Chocolate, Cookies
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Your cookies look terrific – so rich and delicious! Love that first pic!
i saw the picture on tastespotting and clicked it in less than a second! WOW. a cookie that has got that brownie surface. i’m loving it! have bookmarked it. thank you for the recipe. i think i may just have found the cure to my monday blues/dark days of depression and so forth. love it. xx
These look amazing!!! I can never get enough chocolate!
Seriously yummy!
I can’t show this to hubby, or else I’ll have to make them today! =) If only I had time…
All I have to say is I am wiping the drool off of my face.
Thanks!
Wowee! I bookmarked this page on Delicious at the speed of light! As soon as it’s cool enough to turn the oven on again (maybe November here in Texas!) I’m making these!
You know ever since high school, I’ve always like brownies more than cake or cookies. I even have brownies for my birthday. These look like something I’ll have to try. Thank you for sharing.
These look really good, esspecially with that glass of milk! Yum
Pure decadence!
You have the best recipes and this one has to be one of the most chocolatey (how do you spell that?)
I am on my way to the kitchen to make these after the salmon loaf and eggplant. Dinner has to come first or we will be eating cookies for the main course.
OH, those look SO good! I know I could eat the whole plateful in one sitting!
Darnit girl, I just made chocolate cookies last week and now I’m dying to try these! Guess I’ll add another chocolate cookie to the list!
Ooooh, can’t wait to try these!
I found this recipe on tastespotting, and though I usually never make chocolate cookies, but you totally won me over here!
I love that crisp looking exterior and the gooey center… Looks like a brownie trapped in a cookie’s body
The dunked one looks like it’s crying to be eaten
I like your idea for favorite ethnic dishes. If you could give me a good pad thai recipe I’d love you forever 
A very very similar recipe is my favorite!! I also vary them by making brownies out of the same recipe, with a touch more flour, for the same taste, with different texture! Yours look delicious though!
I love these cookies! We always finished them with a good dusting of powdered sugar. Yum!
beautiful cookies! I’m waiting for that one to topple over, into the milk….perfect for us chocoholics
These look amazing, as always!!
Mmmmm!!!! Love a brownie kind of cookie. I’ve made a similar one that I really like, but these definitely have more chocolate as I look at the ingredients!
And concerning what other things you should post–picture me sitting at a table with a spoon in each hand, rhymithically pounding the spoons on the table and shouting, “ice cream, ice cream….” ; ) jk
Pretty much everything you post looks fabulous! Great photography skills as well.
These are so good, but I use gluten free flour.
http://www.alovefornewrecipes.blogspot.com
Wow, these look sooooo good! And no espresso or coffee in it! yes! I’ve seen so many brownie cookie recipes that have either or in them and ew!
Seriously better than brownies?
It looks so yummy, I saved it in my recipe box, I will definitely try it. I’m a chocoholic and this is driving me nuts.. Thanks for sharing the recipe
I think those are going to be my next recipe to bake!
I am thinking of making these for a bake sale, I always try to make something a little different than a standard chocolate chip cookie… will post again if I do make them. Has anyone made them and if so do you think they are a good bake sale item?
These look sinful! I just wanted to thank you for my tea towel, I love it!
So, my dear dear cousin… when can I start making requests for our visit?
Ok, I just made them, and they are DE-LISCIOS!!!!!!!!!! Perfectly chewy! Also, I hate cutting brownies, these are much easier to serve and eat.
*DE-LISCIOUS!*
OH GOSH…. loving the food porn! lol.
im gunna have to try this.
These cookies look amazing- the flavor of a brownie in a cookie proves the existence of God! Now all I need is a glass of ice cold milk!
Thank you for making me these wonderful cookies for my birthday. However, I think you should freeze the extra (extra?) ones. Then when you want a treat take them out of the freezer. lay on the counter to defrost a few minutes while you make coffee. The coffee is to dunk them in instead of the milk! Much better now, don’t you think
what kind of chocolate did you use?
have you tried adding salt either in the recipe or sprinkled on top?
these look incredible!
Holy pastries Batman! That sure makes my skirt fly! Now Im seriously craving for some of that! Delicious!
Made this recipe today! cept I couldn’t get the consitency thick enough to form cookies so I just made brownies.. VERY YUMMY nonetheless..
You’re great.
I was dreaming about chocolate cookies last night so I looked on tastespotting first thing in the morning. I just finished making those cookies. I replaced the chocolate chips with toasted pecans and the results were deliciously fudgy. The only downside is that my cookies aren’t as pretty as yours. They didn’t that cracked, glossy surface, but they still taste awesome.
obparker – I used Ghiradelli 60% bittersweet chocolate.
I haven’t tried sprinkling salt on top, but I will try next time, thank you for the suggestion!
Lizz & Bunney – So glad that you both enjoyed these cookies! Thanks for stopping back to give us the scoop on your results!
I just made these..blah they didn’t turn out at all! I did a test batch with 6 and it turned out more like a cake and really flat. My batter was really thin so I added more flour and I think that was the problem! I put them in a pan to try to make brownies and it turned out more like a cake..a delicious cake though!! haha
I added fresh cherries to the batter and mint chocolate chips. Yum
Hi Mai,
I’m so sorry that these didn’t turn out like you had hoped! It sounds like you still had a decent result, which I am happy to hear! The cherries and mint sound like they would be delicious additions.
I hope you’ll try them again!
I made these last night and they are delicious! So good with a glass of milk. I didn’t line my baking sheets (didn’t have parchment) and they still turned out great and look just like your pictures.
Jen – So thrilled that you enjoyed these cookies! Great to know that you can use un-lined sheets as well, thanks for sharing the tip and your results!
I made these last night and really, I want to love them – I’m chocolate obsessed. They sent me a bit over the top. I’ll try one again this afternoon. Might just be a bit too intense for my usual nighttime pigout. Thanks : ) for the recipe.
This looks awesome! Definitely a must-try!
Hi I just love your Wonderful Cookies. May I ask how is the texture like.. is it more chewy, hard or soft? Cheers Olivia
I just made these and I have to say they’re delicious. One problem though, when I baked them, they turned out to be pretty thin, almost waferlike, but you could still tell it was (supposed to be?) a cookie. I wonder what I did wrong, I’m looking over the recipe and I still don’t see a problem. Oh well, they’re still delicious, and that’s the part that matters, hm?
Hi Olivia,
These cookies are on the soft and chewy side of the spectrum.
Well Michelle, you’ve done it again! First it was your Chocolate Chip and Pretzel cookie bars and now these! I am forever a fan of yours and will come to you when I need a killer craving fixed or an impressive goody day treat to give to my hubby to take to work! These were definitely better than brownies. Super yummy! I’ve posted them on my site (and added you as a favourite, thank you!) and will now go devour another one with a tall glass of moo! I think they’ll be gone in no time and then I’ll have to make them again (maybe this time with some grated orange zest? Mmmm…)
PS For thise that had problems, try measuring with a scale. Does the trick for me every time!
Hi Cari,
So glad you enjoyed these! And I totally agree about weighing ingredients – I do it faithfully and I think it’s really the only way to get truly consistent results!
This recipe doesn’t make sense to me as written. Just reading it, half a cup of flour seems wholly inadequate for the amount of liquid ingredients. I went ahead and made it as written, and as I suspected the batter was very runny and there was no hope that it would hold a cookie shape. I added more flour a quarter-cup at a time until the dough could be scooped, in total I put in 1 3/4 cups flour. With the increased flour, the baked cookies look like your pictures. I also added salt to the dry ingredients, as the omission of salt from such a rich sweet recipe is inappropriate. Cook’s Illustrated published a very similar recipe that I’ve made many times, which calls for 2 cups flour and a full teaspoon of salt. More power to anyone who had good results from this recipe as written, I’ve no idea how you did it.
msdarkling – I appreciate your comment but I certainly had success with these cookies using the recipe as written, and others here have made them successfully as well. This same recipe was featured on at least 2 other blogs prior to my making it with the same ingredient quantities.
In addition, a very popular decadent dessert is “flourless chocolate cake” that typically is comprised of only chocolate, butter, sugar and eggs – no flour at all. The texture is dense, rich and fudgy, which is very similar to these cookies.
the picture with the cookie after being dunked into the glass of milk loooooooooooooooooks absolutely divine, its crazy
I WILL MAKE THESE SOON! 
Wow, these are brownies conveniently packaged as cookies! The only way I can describe them is “chocolatier than chocolate”, and I mean it in the best way possible. Seriously decadent cookies. Great recipe!
My my my .. all ur pictures is really tempting me to make them all at once! Wanna ask is this cookie chewy inside?
Hi Simmone,
Yes, this is a chewy cookie. I hope you try them and enjoy!
I made these yesterday and they turned out amazing! Thanks so much! See them here.
http://hotpolkadot.com/2010/02/25/the-debate-brownie-or-cookie/
I totally stressed about making these cookies as I never melted that much chocolate in a double boiler! I am glad I did because there is nothing to stress about! very easy. These cookies are good but you have to be careful about what chocolate you buy. I bought Ghirardelli bittersweet 60% cacao 4 0z. and 4 0z. of 70% cacao. The rest I used nestle semisweet chocolate morsals. . I think because the cacao ratio was high, I should have upped the sugar?? not sure. appearance is impressive, texture was also great. Very rich tasting. Will make again but change the chocolate that I use.
I had to repost about these cookies. Hubby and I tried these cookies BEFORE breakfast this morning and WOW! they taste AWESOME! They definately need to rest a bit after comming out of the oven. Not sure if I would change the type of chocolate now cause I really liked them this morning!
I tried these… and they came out a bit sticky. I thought they just weren’t done, so I put them back in the oven for about 4 minutes, and they were stick super sticky when I took them out. What could I do to prevent this next time? Besides being sticky (they wouldn’t even remain their cookie shape!) they were delicious. I needed a lot of milk – yummm!
I’m trying the homemade oreos next, woo hoo!
I’ve been saving this recipe for months and finally tried it last night. I used the Ghirardelli bittersweet 60% cacao and Nestle semi-sweet mini chips. The cookies are very delicious, but the batter was very thin and the cookies turned out wafer thin for me also. Although I did get the beautiful crackle like your photos. I may try adding more flour next time (or weighing ingredients – never tried that before!) With the remainder of the current batch, I’m thinking they will make perfect ice cream sandwiches – I think they will turn out terrific! Love your blog!
The butter to chocolate seems a bit strange; usually it’s a tablespoon of butter for every two ounces of chocolate. How did yours not seize up?
My batter was runny too, but these ended up making some delicious (and gooey) brownies! I’ll try measuring the ingredients by weight next time. Thanks.
I think I could eat the entire plate!
Love chocolate. Love brownies. Love cookies – these look to die for!!
OH MY…these look so good!
Made these just now, they flattened out for me too! I even tried chilling the dough wondering if the warm chocolate is making it not set up. Also tried adding a little more flour after the first batch. They’re good, they just spread out a bit too much for me, not poofy like the ones in your pic! Thx for sharing it though!
My daughter is making these now. She had no problem with the consistency, they were easily scooped with a cookie dough scoop but the first batch stayed in a ball shape, so the next batch she flattened a bit. I like the taste but they are not sweet enough for my daughter and they definitely didn’t come out as pretty as yours did. Also could probably use salt. Thanks!
I just made these. While mixing the batter, I wondered if the 1/2 C flour was a mistake, as the batter seemed too runny to do anything but spread all over the cookie sheets, so I read all the comments to the post to see if there was a correction somewhere. After making sure that 1/2 C flour was indeed the correct amount, I decided to go ahead and try to scoop the batter and make cookies, rather than pouring it into a pan for brownies. It was certainly more runny than any cookie batter I’ve ever made, but to my surprise (and delight) the cookies did retain their shape in the oven. I got that beautiful crackly surface that looks so appetizing in your photos, although, like others who have commented here, my cookies came out wafer thin (5/16 of an inch thick, to be exact). However, they taste amazing, and as another person said, they would make superb ice cream sandwiches.
I just made these cookies and they are sooo awesome! I am thinking of sandwiching vanilla ice cream between two cookies and serving them to friends at one of our casual dinners.
Oh no, brownies and cookies in one! I will be hooked for life!
These cookies look amazing!
My goodness, do these ever look good! My suggestion for the next group of recipes would be summer vegetables – tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, etc. My garden will be exploding soon and I need as many recipes as I can get my hands on.
Hi Not to be a drag but would it be possible to substitute cocoa somehow or at least in part to cut the cost of these brownie cookies? I need to make them on a larger scale to use for ice cream sandwiches…….. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks
Hi,
These cookies look sooo good! I love chocolate and cookies that go nice with a glass on milk. Thanks for sharing the recipe
Angie
I have been wanting to make these since you posted them! Why did I wait? These are incredible! I want to add coffee to them – any suggestions on how to do that?
thanks,
Gretta
LOVE the idea of these….tried them….got the same runny result. Came out of the oven nicely, but a little flat. They taste marvelous…..but don’t look like yours. Can you offer a bit of advice? Mine are pancake flat, and are even lighter in color. They have the sheen, but not the crackle.
THANKS