Rich, fudgy double chocolate cookies — cocoa in the dough plus chips throughout — on a baker's-percentage ratio.
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About this recipe
Double chocolate means the chocolate comes from two places at once: cocoa whisked into the dough itself, and chips or chunks folded through it. That cocoa-in-the-dough is what sets these apart from a regular chocolate chip cookie — the whole cookie reads as chocolate, with a fudgy, brownie-edge chew in the center and a thin, crackly top from whisking the sugar into warm fat. They are short on flour relative to the fat and sugar, which is exactly why they bake up dense and fudgy rather than cakey.
Cocoa is the lever that moves everything. My sources split hard on how much to use: King Arthur runs a milder cocoa load (around 14 percent of the flour weight) for a cookie that tastes of chocolate without going intense, while Sally's Baking Addiction pushes it to roughly 44 percent for a deep, almost-brownie fudginess. I set the default at 35 percent — between the two but leaning toward the fudgier side, because a cookie called double chocolate should taste like it — and let the safe range span both camps. Dutch-process cocoa gives a smoother, darker, less acidic result; natural cocoa is brighter and more acidic — both work at the same percentage. Push the cocoa toward the top of the range for an intensely fudgy cookie, or pull it down toward 14 for a gentler one.
Gluten-free bakers do well here. A 1:1 cup-for-cup blend (the kind that already includes xanthan gum) drops straight in with no other changes, and the heavy cocoa plus the melting chips mask the small texture differences a GF flour usually shows. If you are baking for someone with celiac, reach for a certified gluten-free blend so there is no cross-contamination from the mill.
The ratio takes variations easily. For a crinkle finish, roll the dough balls in powdered sugar before baking — they crack open into the white-fissured look as they spread. A few drops of peppermint extract with the vanilla, plus mint chips, turns these into a holiday cookie. Peanut butter chips in place of some of the chocolate lean them toward a chocolate-peanut-butter cup. And a teaspoon of espresso powder whisked into the dry ingredients deepens the chocolate without reading as coffee at all.
At a glance
At its default setting, this Double Chocolate Cookies recipe makes 18 rolls at about 40g each — about 1021g of batter in total. In baker's percentage that breaks down to 167g AP flour (100%), 58g Dutch-process or natural cocoa powder (35%), 134g Granulated sugar (80%), 134g Light or dark brown sugar (80%), 150g Unsalted butter (90%), 67g Large eggs (40%), 5.0g Vanilla extract (3%), 3.3g Baking soda (2%), 1.7g Fine sea salt (1%), and 301g Chocolate chips or chunks (180%). Change the rolls or enter a target batter weight in the calculator and every amount rescales to match, in grams or ounces.
Make
Display unit
Eggs display
By count for cartons of whole eggs; by weight for liquid egg or precision baking.
Total batter
1021g
Mix-ins
Saved to this device only — no account needed.
Step-by-step method
A straightforward one-bowl cookie. Cream the butter with both sugars for the crackly top, beat in the egg and vanilla, then sift in the dry — including the cocoa, which is what makes these double chocolate. Fold in the chips, scoop, and bake. The only thing to watch is the oven: cocoa-heavy cookies look underdone right when they are done, so pull them on the early side.
Cool on the pan 5 minutes before moving to a rack — the centers are too soft to lift cleanly straight from the oven. A pinch of flaky salt on the warm tops is optional but good.
Frequently asked
Use the calculator on this page. Pick your pan dimensions (or enter a total batter weight) and every ingredient amount updates automatically. The recipe is written in baker's percentage, so the ratio — and the texture — stays the same whether you bake an 8×8, a 9×13, or a half sheet.
Yes. The espresso powder is optional — it deepens the chocolate flavor without tasting like coffee, but the recipe works without it. Nuts and chocolate chips are mix-in toggles in the calculator: switch them on or off and the amounts update. Turning a mix-in off removes it cleanly without changing the rest of the ratio.
The brown-butter method cooks the butter to a nutty brown before mixing, which adds a deeper, almost caramel-edged flavor — at the cost of about 45 minutes of cooling time. The classic melt-and-whisk method is faster and still produces a rich, fudgy result. Both use the same ratio; only the butter handling changes.
More general questions about ratios, hydration, and the calculator on the FAQ page.
Background concepts
Foundational · Technique
What actually makes a cookie chewy, crispy, or cakey: how sugar type, butter handling, flour, eggs, leavening, dough chilling, and bake time each change the result — and how to dial a cookie toward the texture you want.
Read the guide →
Foundational · Ingredients
What flour, water, salt, yeast, sugar, oil, butter, eggs, milk, honey, and malt each contribute to bread — flavor, structure, fermentation, color, and texture. A practical reference for understanding any recipe and adapting it on purpose.
Read the guide →
Foundational · Bread math
What baker’s percentage actually means, why every bread recipe in the library uses it, and how to read a percentage at a glance. With worked examples and a quick-reference table.
Read the guide →