Best One Bowl Gluten-free Brownie Recipe
on Nov 17, 2021, Updated Feb 09, 2023
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Gluten-free baking doesn’t always live up to its promises, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with these really good one bowl gluten-free brownies. Fussy about your brownies? You should be! With these, I went for melt-in-your-mouth rich and buttery brownies with a deep dark chocolate flavour. They’re fudgy AND cakey, with a little chew on top!
Why they’re the best gluten-free brownies
Even if you aren’t gluten-free yourself, we all have people in our lives who are. So of course it’s a good idea to have an easy and fail-safe gluten-free brownie recipe up our sleeves!
Why the best? They’re…
- Fudgy, cakey, AND chewy. At last, brownie lovers of all kinds can unite!
- Rich and buttery, melt in your mouth, with a rich chocolaty flavour.
- Triple chocolate brownies with dark chocolate, cocoa AND chocolate chips. Mmm!
- Made all in one bowl!
- Not too sweet (as brownies go!) with just 1 cup of sugar in the whole batch.
- Your friends who aren’t gluten-free will love them too! I don’t think these taste gluten-free. Without gluten, yes, but no less delicious. No need to make two different kinds.
About the ingredients
Butter: Use either unsalted or salted. If you use salted, just skip the teaspoon of salt. There’s plenty of butter in this recipe for a delicious melt-in-your-mouth result!
Chocolate: I like to add a whole half of a big bar of dark chocolate to these brownies for a super chocolaty flavour. Use a good quality brand with anywhere from 45 to 70% cocoa solids. Milk chocolate will work too if that’s what you have.
Dark brown sugar: Adds a hint of ‘salted caramel’. Light brown sugar works, too.
Eggs: You’ll need 4 – 3 large eggs plus an extra yolk. This helps with the ‘cakey fudgy chewy’ end result I was looking for.
Cocoa: Yup, real melted chocolate and cocoa powder, too. You can use regular cocoa, Dutch processed or even cacao – all work.
Salt: I add a teaspoon, unless I’ve used salted butter, in which case I skip the salt.
Vanilla: Add a teaspoon of a good quality vanilla essence.
Gluten-free flour: I use just a standard supermarket all purpose gluten-free flour. The one I use is mostly rice flour and maize and tapioca starches, but you’ll find different ingredients in different brands. There’s only 1/2 a cup of flour in this recipe, so any kind of gluten-free flour works well.
Baking powder: Just half a teaspoon does the trick for just a little extra rise.
Chocolate chips: Yep, I’m going for triple chocolate. Strictly speaking you could skip the chocolate chips, although I don’t advise it! You can use either chips or melts – whichever you have.
How to make them
Scroll down for the full recipe and to print, but here’s a quick summary of the steps you’ll take to make your brownies.
Steps 1 to 2: In a large bowl, melt the butter with the chocolate. I do this in the microwave. 1.5 to 2.5 minutes usually does the trick, depending on your microwave. Stir until smooth.
Steps 3 and 4: Stir in the brown sugar, followed by the eggs and vanilla.
Steps 5 to 6: Give it another good stir. Then stir in the cocoa, baking powder and salt.
Steps 7 to 8: Fold in the flour and chocolate chips until they’re just combined. Ready to rock and roll! (or at least to pour the batter into your pan and bake!)
Before and after baking:
Helen’s top tips
- Use a good quality dark chocolate with between 45 to 70% cocoa solids.
- Line your pan with baking paper and spray lightly with oil (or grease with butter) to prevent sticking.
- Fold in the flour and choc chips gently, just until there are no more white bits (for the best texture!).
- Don’t over bake! The brownies are ready when a skewer or the end of a knife inserted into the centre come out a little sticky but not with raw batter on. Better to slightly under bake than over bake.
Serving suggestion: Make a jug of this 5-minute raspberry puree. Serve the brownies warm with nice cream and raspberry puree on top!
More things to know (recipe FAQ)
You can make them dairy free by replacing the butter with an equal amount of melted coconut, canola, olive or avocado oil. Or use vegan butter!
You can! As there’s only a relatively small amount of flour in these brownies (just half a cup) it’s easy to substitute in other flours without it changing the overall result too much. The texture may be slightly different, but the brownies will still be melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
You can use almond flour, buckwheat flour or whole wheat gluten-free flour. Coconut flour works too, but you should only use 2 tablespoons because it’s highly absorbent.
Erm… no, I really don’t think so. You know how gluten-free baking can sometimes have that slight ‘grainy’ quality? Maybe because there’s only half a cup of flour in these and so much chocolaty gooey-ness, I can’t tell these are gluten-free.
To be honest, while there are many possible substitutes for eggs in baking recipes, I haven’t tried any of them in this recipe and so can’t be sure that you’d get the same result. My suggestion is to search for a really good vegan brownie recipe instead of this one. There are many out there!
If you’re on the lookout for good vegan baking recipes, may I suggest this 2-minute peanut butter healthy mug cake? It makes for a very quick and tasty ’emergency’ dessert!
Actually… these brownies already contain less sugar than average. Reducing the sugar even more might affect the consistency too much. If you’d like them to be less sweet, I’d suggest just skipping the chocolate chips. Or just have half a brownie!
Just so you know, I also have some healthy brownies on the site – these healthier brownies with avocado. Or try this 30-minute healthy chocolate cake if it’s healthy you’re looking for.
Not very long in our house! If you have more self control than we do, they should last well for 3 to 4 days in an airtight container at room temperature, or around a week in the fridge. Eaten straight from the fridge they’ll taste more fudgy!
What I often do to ‘help’ us not eat all the brownies straight away is freeze some for later. Freeze them between layers of baking paper in a container with a lid, or well wrapped in plastic wrap and/or foil. You can freeze them for around 3 months.
More gluten-free desserts
Here are a few more delicious gluten-free baking ideas:
- no-bake caramel squares (just make sure you use gluten-free biscuits for the base)
- 10-minute Christmas rocky road (can easily be made gluten free!)
See all my gluten-free recipes.
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Best One Bowl Gluten-free Brownie Recipe
Ingredients
- 150 grams butter, = ⅔ cup or 11 tablespoons
- 100 grams dark chocolate, = 3.5 ounces (broken into pieces)
- 185 grams dark brown sugar, = 1 cup or 6.5 ounces
- 3 large eggs, (In Australia I buy the eggs that are labelled 'extra large' or 700 grams. I believe egg sizes are the same as this in the US, but the equivalent in the UK is 'large' eggs.)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 30 grams cocoa powder, = ¼ cup or 1 ounce
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt , (leave this out if you use salted butter)
- 65 grams gluten-free flour, = ½ cup or 2.3 ounces
- 95 grams chocolate chips, = ½ cup or 3.3 ounces
Instructions
- Prepare an 8 x 8 inch (20 x 20cm) square baking pan by lining it with baking paper and spraying lightly with oil (or greasing with butter). Preheat the oven to 180C/355F.
- Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large bowl in the microwave in 30-second bursts (1.5 to 2.5 minutes, depending on your microwave).150 grams butter, 100 grams dark chocolate
- Stir well until the butter and chocolate are fully melted and smooth. Add the sugar and stir that in as well.185 grams dark brown sugar
- Let cool slightly. Then whisk the eggs and the egg yolk lightly and stir them into the mixture.3 large eggs, 1 large egg yolk
- Stir in the vanilla, then the cocoa, baking powder and salt.1 teaspoon vanilla essence, 30 grams cocoa powder, ½ teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt
- Stir in the flour just until you can't see any more white bits. Then fold in the chocolate chips gently.65 grams gluten-free flour, 95 grams chocolate chips
- Pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan and smooth out to the edges. Bake for around 25 minutes or until the edges are set and a skewer/sharp knife inserted into the centre of the brownies comes out with a bit of sticky (but not raw) batter on it.
You should be aware that baking powder sometimes includes flour as filler, along with the active ingredients; it is not necessarily gluten-free, so people should check theirs before using it.
Thank you so much for pointing this out. I will definitely add a note in the recipe! 🙂
I LOVED these brownies. I’ve tried so many different gluten free brownie recipes, and this is the one I’m going to stick with. They taste exactly as you say: just the right amount of fudgy and cakey. Yum!
What a compliment, Jackie – thank you so much for the feedback! 🙂