Best Ever Chewy Fudgy Gluten-free Brownies
Gluten-free brownies that are perfectly chewy and fudgy all at the same time. No cakey brownies here! These chewy gluten-free brownies are perfect for those intense chocolate cravings!
Brownies have always been one of my absolute favorite desserts. I love the simplicity of them and they are a perfect fix for a chocolate craving. These are, by far, the best gluten-free brownies I’ve had. If you like your brownies to be fudgy and chewy, not cakey, then these are for you.
America’s Test Kitchen developed the perfect gluten-full version of this recipe, and I easily adapted it to gluten-free my favorite gluten-free flour blends.
I’m a huge fan of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated. They research and test a ton before coming up with the perfect version of a recipe. If you’ve never followed a recipe by America’s Test Kitchen, you might be surprised at the precise steps involved, but trust that every little detail has been tested.
In this recipe, you might be tempted to skip lining the pan with aluminum foil but don’t! I have tried this recipe without the foil, and the brownies did not turn out as well, and lacked the shiny crust that makes these so beautiful.
Notes on Ingredients and Substitutions for these gluten-free brownies:
- Cocoa: I’ve had success no matter what cocoa I use. My usual though is this Saco cocoa that is a blend of natural and Dutch process cocoa. I buy mine at Winco, but it’s also available from Amazon here.
- Unsweetened Chocolate: You need to chop and melt unsweetened chocolate squares. I use Baker’s unsweetened chocolate which I find at Target and Winco and most other stores. You’ll use just 2 ounces of it – read the package so you understand how much of the package that is. I suggest putting the rest in a ziploc bag and storing until the next time you make these brownies!
- Chocolate chips: I’m not a fan of milk chocolate, so I use semi-sweet chocolate in my recipe. If you love milk chocolate, feel free to use milk chocolate chips. Or use bittersweet or dark chocolate if you love either of those.
- Egg yolks: One of the main reasons these are chewy is that they have extra egg yolks. So you’ll be using two whole eggs plus two egg yolks. I really don’t think any egg substitutions would work well in this recipe. Sorry!
- Oil/Butter: This recipe uses both oil and butter for great texture and flavor. If you need to, you can use combine the amounts and use all of one or the other. I do recommend a flavorless oil like corn oil, canola oil, or a light tasting olive oil.
As always, I only recommend baking with a good quality all-purpose gluten-free flour blend. All flour blends are not created equal! I recommend avoiding flour blends that contain any bean flours or that are primarily rice flour, as you’ll get a more gritty result. I definitely recommend gfJules gluten-free flour which you can buy direct or from Amazon. Other good quality flour blends I recommend are: King Arthur Measure for Measure (from Amazon or Target), Cup4Cup (from Amazon or Target), Authentic Foods Multi-blend, and Pamela’s.
Can you make these gluten-free brownies dairy-free?
Yes! You can replace the butter with an equal amount of additional oil. You can replace the chocolate chips with dairy-free chocolate mini chips or chocolate chunks from Enjoy Life.
My favorite way to enjoy these gf brownies (besides plain, with a glass of cold milk) is to have gluten-free Brownie Sundaes with my homemade hot fudge! And if I make my homemade caramel sauce, or peanut butter ice cream topping also, even better – so good with all of these!
Looking for other gluten-free chocolate desserts? Try my gluten-free trifle recipe with brownies, candy, and whipped cream. Over the top good too! And you can’t go wrong with my gluten-free chocolate cupcakes either!
If you make these and love them, please come back and give this recipe a 5 star rating in the recipe card! Feel free to comment with tips or to share any successful substitutions you made.
Gluten-free Chewy Brownies Recipe:
Best Ever Chewy Fudgy Gluten-free Brownies
Notice that you need 4 eggs total for this recipe. You'll use 2 whole eggs + 2 extra egg yolks. I'm sure you can come up with another yummy use for the leftover whites!
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
- 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped (I use Baker's squares)
- 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons oil (corn, canola, vegetable, or coconut)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 1¾ cups good quality gluten-free flour blend*
- 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum (*see note)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Make a foil sling: Cut 18" length foil and fold lengthwise to 8" width. Fit foil into length of 13x9" baking pan (I recommend using a metal one), pushing into corners and up the sides of pan; allow excess to overhang pan edges. Cut 14" length foil and fit into width of pan in the same manner, perpendicular to the first sheet. Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large microwave safe bowl, whisk cocoa and boiling water together until smooth. Add unsweetened chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is melted. If you need to, place the bowl in the microwave in 30 second increments to help melt the chocolate.
- Whisk in the melted butter and oil. Mixture may look curdled at this point and that's okay! Add eggs, yolks, and vanilla extract, and continue to whisk until smooth and homogenous.
- Whisk in sugar until fully incorporated.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the gluten-free flour blend, xanthan gum (if needed), and salt.
- Stir the flour mixture into wet ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula until combined.
- Fold in the bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate pieces.
- Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and cool 1 1/2 hours.
- When cool, cut and serve! The foil sling makes it easy to pull them out and place on cutting board for easy cutting. These cut very nicely with a plastic bladed cutter.
- If you use a glass baking dish, cool the brownies 10 minutes, then remove them promptly from the pan so they don't overbake in the hot pan.
- Store leftovers at room temperature.
Notes
*If using a gluten-free flour blend that already includes xanthan or guar gum, then omit the xanthan called for in the recipe. (gfJules includes xanthan, Cup4Cup includes xanthan, King Arthur includes xanthan, Pamela's includes guar, Gluten-free Mama doesn't use any gums so you add the gum separately as called for in recipe.)
*Dairy-free adaptation: Use non-dairy alternative for butter, and use a non-dairy chocolate.
If you’re looking for more gluten-free brownie recipes, head over to my gluten-free brownies Pinterest board!
Recipe originally published Dec. 2012, updated June 2015.
Pin this gluten-free brownie recipe to your gluten-free desserts Pinterest board:
Old photos from 2012 – this was one of the first recipes ever posted to my website:
Wow. I’m a bit of a brownie connoisseur and have been searching for the perfect recipe for years and THIS is it! Perfect texture, easy to make, and no one would ever guess they are gluten free. I used Cup4Cup brand GF flour.
Ah.mazing. Made them dairy free with Myokos cultured vegan butter and ate half the pan basically immediately ???? These will definitely be high on my list of treats. And so very easy to make.
Could this recipe work with honey, agave, maple syrup, or any other sugar substitute?
Can nuts be added to these? Do any of the other ingredient amounts need to be adjusted if I add some nuts?
You can definitely stir in nuts! No need to adjust any other ingredients, though if you want to, you can cut the amount of chocolate chips you stir in at the end, and replace with nuts. But it’s also okay to use both!
Yum!!! It’s fantastic to find a GF recipe that doesn’t come out kind of dry. Thanks!
Can this recipe work with Stevia instead of Sugar?
This recipe hasn’t been tested with Stevia, nor do I ever use it, so I don’t know how that swap would work.
I’ve only recently discovered that I have gluten sensititivy, after years of trying to figure it out, so had been trying to find ways of making some gluten-free desserts and meals. I had been using a brownie recipe, trying to get it moist while still gluten free. While tasty, just could not avoid the dryness. Just a few days ago, an acquaintance had shown me this recipe, and I couldn’t wait to try it. Not only was it excellent, but I had my coworkers try it, and they said it was one of the best they’ve ever had, and wouldn’t have been able to tell it was a gluten-free item. Thank you very much!
Too much flour so that are very cake like. I will cut flour in half next time.
I hope your changes work for making these just how you want them! I know everyone has a different idea of what a perfect brownie is! The texture in these definitely varies based on which flour blend you use and how you measure your flour. It may very well be that with your flour blend, you do need to use less!
For medical reasons, it’s been advised that I try a gluten-free diet. I figured if I can find a favorite gluten-free brownie recipe, I think I’ll be able to manage. Looking at ingredients very carefully, I see that sometimes chocolate is processed and cross-contaminated. The link you provided for the Cocoa makes it unclear to me if that is gluten-free, as it does not seem to say so on the label. Wondering if chocolate to be carefully reviewed as well for the ingredients. Thank you for your help and your brownies look amazing.
These were insanely mediocre. I used Cup4Cup flour and cut the oil down due to a few comments mentioning that these were oily. And boy were they right, these were the oiliest brownies I have ever encountered in my life, to the point where it actually imparted an aftertaste. I had to drown them in whipped cream for them to be decent. They were super pretty, just like the picture with the shiny crackly top, but otherwise just not that great.
Wow. Sorry. Given the success most have had with these, I’m not sure what went wrong. But I also know that everyone has their own idea of a perfect brownie Good luck in your search for the perfect one! You might try my frosted brownie recipe, it’s a more cakey style brownie.
These are AMAZING! So happy I found this recipe. It is a keeper and nice to stop the hunt for a great gluten free brownie. Yay!!
love this recipe. my go-to recipe and Always get complements. going to try recipe with all-purpose flour.
If dairy free is needed do you recommend a butter replacement or some kind of oil? Or not to try it without real butter?
I made this tonight with Pamela’s mix. It raised so much it completely overflowed from all sides while baking. I had to pull it out way too early. I followed the recipe exact so my only guess is Pamela’s flour blend wasn’t good for this recipe. We ended up eating it with ice cream and everyone was very pleased still. It had amazing flavor and texture. I’ll be trying again with a different blend.
Or just use a bigger pan next time!!
I used Cup4Cup gluten free flour, 2oz semisweet chocolate instead of unsweetened chocolate and room temperature eggs (as suggested in every GF recipe I’ve ever used). This recipe was easy and delicious. I baked for 35 minutes and it was perfect! They were very fudgy and gooey but not under baked gooey. No one could tell the were GF. No gritty texture but I did also add an extra tablespoon of unsalted butter (5 instead of 4) Will definitely make again!
I’m making these for the third time. My picky husband, who doesn’t care for sweets and when it comes to brownies he prefers the box mix, and he is new to the gluten free game and was not a fan in the past, he loves these. I live in Arizona and cannot turn on the oven this time of year so I’m going to try them in the crock pot or the grill. I’m running out of time though. I can hardly wait. This recipe taught me that good brownies just take time. These are amazingly good.
I would love to know how they do in the crockpot or grill!! Please let me know!
Wonderful gooey brownies. We used semi sweet chocolate, and I found them way to sweet. Next time I will use at least 70% and will reduce the sugar a bit. The only other issue was using the foil inexpertly. I might try baking paper as the brownies baked into the folds of the foil. Sending them to a school fair for the bake sale as a GF option. Thanks for posting this recipe
Made them for aa baby shower. Came out chewy and fudgy. Texture is slightly gritty but definitely not bad. Added both semi-sweet and dark chocolate bits and a few Reeses Pieces on top for a little extra. Will make again.
I tried to make these and I’m not sure if maybe I did something wrong or if its the recipe but mine didn’t seem to turn out right on either of my two attempts. I made sure to follow tge recipe closely and even after I ended up adding an extra 40 minutes to the baking time the brownies were raw and soggy in the center. Could be me not quite doing it right or its that this recipe simply doesn’t work for me. For what its worth, the cooked parts of the brownies, while albeit dry and somewhat cakey, were not terrible. Definitely not trying this again, a waste of 4 good eggs, 2 and a half cups of sugar, and 6 ounces of delicious choclate. Color me disappointed.
What kind of pan did you use to bake these in, Ella? It could be your oven isn’t calibrated correctly or doesn’t hold a consistent temperature or if you used a glass or stoneware type of baking dish, it would definitely require extra time to bake due to the nature of how these pans heat up slowly…the only other thing I can think of is that there was too much liquid added, somehow or…maybe the kind of sugar or flour you use is affecting the texture. Sugar is considered a “liquifier” so it will create a more moist brownie and if you’re using a sugar with a smaller crystal, you’ll end up with more sugar. Similarly, depending on the flour blend, you could end up with an imbalance of wet to dry ingredients so you could add a little more flour and/or cocoa powder (they will have similar effects although the cocoa powder will obviously add more chocolate).
I just made these tonight and they’re delicious! They’re a little too sweet for me and they’re definitely gooey, but not raw and I think I only did the 30 minute minimum. I’m going to do a repeat with less sugar to address the sweet issue, it will be interesting to see if they end up being a “firmer” brownie.