Brownie Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies – Vegan & GF Options too!
Every bite has walnuts and chocolate chunks in every one of these fudgy brownie cookies and we're pretty happy about that!
Servings: 15 Cookies
Calories:
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder measured correctly
- ½ cup white granulated sugar or 3/4 white sugar, omit brown sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted (or dairy-free butter)
- ½ cup applesauce (or 1 large egg + 2 tablespoons oil of choice)
- 2 teaspoons pure chocolate or vanilla extract
- 1 ⅓ cups all purpose flour or gluten free flour measured correctly
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips or chunks + some for top of cookies (I used Enjoy Life dairy-free chocolate chunks)
- ½ cup walnuts rough chopped or whole, add more if desired, I desired and added 1 cup
- Optional: ½ cups chopped dried cherries I added these to the last 3rd of dough I had left
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Line cookie sheet (s) with parchment paper.
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, white sugar, brown sugar, cooled down butter and applesauce or egg and oil combo. Add in vanilla and mix together.
- Make sure you measure the flour correctly, and add the flour, baking powder, and salt to the wet ingredients mixing with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips, walnuts and cherries if desired. Dough will be thick.
- Using a small or medium cookie scoop or 1 1/2 tablespoon - 2 tablespoons, place onto prepared baking sheets. Press them down however thick or thin you want cookies. Cookies do not spread much.
- Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. The cookies will appear soft from the oven but will set up as they cool. 8 minutes for soft and fudgy - 10 minutes for soft and chewier. Don't overbake.
- Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.
Notes
Tips / Options:
- When melting butter, let butter cool down. It can still can be warm when adding in ingredients to make the brownies, but should not be hot. If using an egg, hot butter could cook it and also make the dough warm, and also melt the sugar down.
For my Vegan Option:
- Applesauce and dairy-free butter is used instead of 1 egg and butter. Use dairy-free chocolate chunks or chips. I use these all the time and I love them- also sugar-free! Enjoy Life chocolate chunks.
For my Gluten-Free Option:
- Replace all-purpose flour with a good gluten-free flour mix
For my Healthier Option:
- Use whole-wheat flour or 1/2 all purpose + 1/2 whole-wheat flour.
Can also use applesauce versus 1 egg. - Use Lakanto healthy sugar (it's awesome!) and Enjoy Life chocolate chunks. Lakanto makes sugar-free chocolate chips too and if you want to get those or any other Lakanto products, feel free to use my 15% discount code: thebakingchocolatess15
Add Other Add-ins:
- I added some dried cherries to some of the dough and they were superb! Use other add-ins such as white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, dried fruits, chopped peanut butter cups, hazelnuts, almonds or pecans, oreo cookie chunks, m&m's...ok, I think you probably get the point.
- If dough is too thick add a tablespoon of milk or 2 to batter.