Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Perfect for bake sales, after school treats, and potlucks, these gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bars will be a hit with all the chocolate lovers! They’re easier and quicker to make than cookies.
So many of you have tried and love my gluten-free chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe, that I thought I’d post a few adaptations of it this year. First up – gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bars!
You’ve got to make these yummy gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bars. In making these bars instead of cookies, I made a few changes. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some disappointingly dry cookie bars before. I didn’t want that to happen here, so I increased the butter so that these bars wouldn’t be dry at all. It was a good decision!
Secondly, I used two different sizes of chocolate chips. I wanted to make sure there was a bit of chocolate in every single bite! I used both regular semi-sweet morsels and mini semi-sweet morsels.
You could also mix it up by using some milk chocolate and some dark chocolate. But definitely consider including some mini ones for sure. They help make sure that you don’t get a single little bite that isn’t chocolatey!
Notes on ingredients for these gluten-free chocolate chip bars:
- Flour: tested successfully with Gluten Free Mama’s Almond Blend and Cup4Cup. Other varieties of flour that are not only rice based should work okay in these. With the two I recommended, there isn’t any grittiness. I can’t guarantee that with your favorite blend, but do feel free to try it!
- The cream cheese is a key ingredient here. Don’t skip it!
- So is the butter. Mmm, butter.
- Chocolate chips: for good chocolate chips that are easy to find at most grocery stores, I love Guittard semi-sweet chocolate baking chips. They are made in a gluten-free, and peanut-free facility. If you’d like chocolate chips that are certified gluten-free as well as top 8 free, I love and recommend Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolates available as mini chips or mega chunks.
I like sprinkling a few more chips on them for the last couple minutes of baking for that shiny, slightly melted look like you see in the pictures above. If you’d like that too, just reserve some of the chocolate chips called for in the recipe.
However, if you’re wanting to pack these up to mail to someone, I’d skip the chocolate chips on top so they aren’t so messy.
After these cool in the pan, then you can slice them up. I recommend you use a plastic knife to cut these. I recently bought this one and it works so well! This keeps you from scratching up your pan, and it slices through the bars so cleanly instead of getting gunked up.
You can slice these up as big or small as you’d like. I usually think about how many people will be eating them at whatever gathering I’m bringing them to, and slice accordingly.
These would be a fun treat to bring to share at a potluck or to mail to a loved one. Let me know if you make them and what flour you used!
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 Chocolate Chip Bars Recipe:
Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
All the yummy flavor of my chewy gluten-free chocolate chip cookies in a much easier, quicker bar cookie form!
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups (~282 grams) good all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
- 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum*
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 ounces cream cheese, room temp
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 egg yolks (room temp)
- 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup additional semi-sweet chocolate chips for topping if desired
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together gluten-free flour, xanthan gum (unless flour blend already has xanthan or guar gum), baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, place the cream cheese, then pour melted butter over it. Add brown sugar and sugar and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. (I use the paddle attachment on my mixer.)
- Add vanilla extract and egg yolks (one at a time) mixing on low-medium speed until well mixed.
- Add the flour mixture that you set aside earlier, beating on low until just combined.
- Add both sizes of chocolate chips and mix on low or by hand, just until mixed thoroughly.
- Spread into lightly greased 9x13 metal pan. Bake in preheated 350Ëš oven for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle with additional 1/4 cup of chocolate chips and return to oven for 2-3 more minutes.
- Remove from oven and place pan on cooling rack. Let cool before cutting. (Note, to save your pan from getting scratched up, I like to use a plastic knife to cut the bars.)
- You can cut these whatever size you'd like of course, anywhere from 12 big bars to 24 smaller ones. Enjoy!
Notes
*omit xanthan gum if gluten-free flour blend has xanthan or guar gum already
I hope you love these! Let me know if there’s another gluten-free bar cookie you’d like me to have a recipe for!
My chocolate chips sadly melted as I folded them in the warm batter. Do you cool the batter before mixing in?
Michelle, you specify a metal pan. I use glass pans. What differences should I note?
This is SO good! I’ve made this recipe many times and it always turns out good. I used Great Value gluten free flour each time.
Supermundo cookie bars. This is the first gluten free recipe I ever made and I found even better than cookies. I’m going to surprise my son in law with these and gluten free bread. I will be trying more of your recipes.
I made these for an end-of-year school celebration and they were eaten quickly by everyone. I used the GF King Arthur measure for measure flour and I thought the texture was excellent for being GF. We are brand new to celiac, so that is what I had on hand. I am curious to try your recipes with the flours recommended!
I used King Arthur Gluten-free measure for measure flour. I did have to cook them for 30 minutes because they did not look done at 25 minutes. They tasted amazingly delicious and were not oily or gritty and definitely did not taste gluten-free! My husband doesn’t like anything I make that is gluten-free because of the texture or after taste that a baked item may have, but he really loved these chocolate-chip bars!
This was the best gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bar ever!! I baked these for my friends, and they were a big hit! Thank you so much for sharing this absolutely delicious and perfect gluten-free dessert!
These cookie bars are my family’s kryptonite. They are so good it’s hard to describe. They never last more than a day. My family members who are not gluten free request that I bring them to family occasions. I follow the recipe to a T and I brown the butter. Makes it over the top! And, I I use almond flour instead of GF flour blend! Bob’s Red Mill superfine almond flour. They are AMAZING. People cannot believe they are gluten free. Soooo good thank you!!
Can I use Mascarpone cheese instead of cream cheese?
People LOVED them – especially the generous amount of chocolate chips 🙂 They’re a bit crumbly but they were so delicious! Definitely saving this recipe!! Highly recommend!
I used Bob’s Red Mill biscuit & baking mix GF flour since it was all I had on hand, plus the thickening gum (skip adding baking soda since it’s already in the mix). And lined my pan with parchment paper so I could transport them easier.
Can you make these in a disposable pan? If so, any adjustments necessary regarding temperature or baking time?
Made these for a coworker who has a gluten allergy. They were not gritty at all. They were a great texture and taste delicious. They are very sweet. I did use both mini and regular chips. I used King Arthur measure for measure gluten free flour. I would make again.
Can these be made 1-2 days early and kept in refrigerator or will that ruin them?
Absolutely scrumptious! A big hit with our friends tonight.
These are the Best! SO good! I froze some and they were awesome and tasted as fresh as can be! I can’t wait to make them for all the summer picnics we go to, and I love that they make a 9×13 pan!
These tasted delicious! However mine didn’t come out moist or together, they were super crumby and fell apart after they cooked down. Any ideas why this might have happened? I used dairy free butter and dairy free Kite Hill cream cheese as well as the Bob’s Redmill gluten free flour blend. Thanks!
I made these and they are the best I have found for gluten free cookies/bars. They went very fast at my house! I followed the recipe for the cookies and found I didn’t have time to bake so just made bars. While they were dense, I don’t think I would add the additional butter. Also I used neufchatel cheese and it worked perfectly. I also used duck egg yolks which gives it an extra rich flavor. I used King Arthur’s gluten-free flour with xanthem gum but without almonds or cornstarch.
I make these every year for my little gluten free nephew, & these things are dangerously good. I love them, better than any choc chip cookie I’ve ever had. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I love to see his little face light up when he realizes he can eat them. God bless!
these are by far the best gluten free chocolate chip cookie I have ever eaten. The recipe was super easy to follow. I sprinkled some kosher salt on top once they came out of the over- delicious! I won’t be buying any more gluten free cookies!
Hi!
I did this recipe, adapted a lil bit with what I had or not, and it was delicious!! I’d love to make it cookie style, I was just too impatient to taste it!
I didn’t have cream cheese and I was like “I have to put something that’s the same kind of texture, she’s emphasizing on it too much to just not put anything like it”. So I did my trick of adding a very ripe banana+2tsp of apple sauce, as I used to replace the eggs by bananas in my vegan phase for the texture and bonding properties, and apple sauce makes everything smushy.
I put 1 cup of sugar total as I don’t eat much of it.
I put less chocolate, but half as semi-sweet and half of pure cacao, again cause I don’t eat lots of sugar and it would have been too much.
It was perfect! The smushy texture, no grainy-feel, it feels light and that’s dangerous because I almost finished everything already…
Thanks for putting the recipe out here, I loved exploring with your experiment and indications!