Crispy Chocolate Cookies (GF)

These Crispy Chocolate Cookies are the simplest and easiest cookie recipe ever! Starting with a cake mix and only needing four ingredients, you can have these made and ready for baking in no time. And they are so easy your kids can help you with most of the mixing and forming the balls. Chocolatey and crunchy, they are tasty little bites of delight!

When I was a young adult I decided I wanted to try living in Los Angeles. I had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area nearly my whole life and I wanted to expand my horizons. Heading south was quite the adventure.

I had a job at a stock brokerage, made a bunch of friends there, and learned a lot about life outside of my sheltered life experiences.

One of my favorite things about LA was the weekly food section of the Los Angeles Times. I didn’t know it then but it was one of the finest food sections in the country. Boy did I love the recipes they shared every week. It was like a blog before they were created!

The paper covered all the incredible restaurants and often included recipes from the lauded chefs. It was always a thrill to get the paper and read all the recipes and reviews. Today’s recipe came from my time in LA and it turned into one of my regular treats I made for my friends at work!

These cookies can be made with any flavor of regular cake mix (not quick breads, coffee cake, or angel food), such as lemon, strawberry, Funfetti, vanilla, red velvet, spice, etc. Just about any flavor you love can become a crunchy cookie!

I used King Arthur Baking’s gluten-free chocolate cake mix, one of my favorites. But you can use any you can find in your grocery store or online. And if you are not gluten free, you can use any regular cake mix.

Remember, if you are using a chocolate cake mix, you will need to add the 2 to 3 tbsp of water to get the dough to come together. If you are using a non-chocolate flavor, like vanilla or Funfetti, you may not need to add the water unless the dough is too dry to hold together.

These cookies barely spread as they bake, so you can load up the baking sheet pans with the cookies fairly close together.  

I love these little one-bite cookies. They are intensely chocolatey with a fun crunch from the cereal. I love that I can make them any flavor I like depending on my mood. Such great flexibility in the easiest recipe on earth!

You can make them a bit bigger if you prefer a two-bite cookie. Just use a slightly larger cookie scoop! For the smaller one-bite cookies use a #60 disher; for a larger two-bite cookie use a #40 disher/scoop.

Because you can use any flavor of cake mix, these are good for holidays all year long! Use a white cake mix and add some food coloring to suit the holiday – green for St. Patrick’s Day, pink for Valentine’s Day, pastels for Easter, etc. The fun never ends with these cookies!

If you are looking for a truly simple recipe that is incredibly flexible and adjustable, you have found it. Super easy and delicious! Four ingredients all get dumped together into a mixing bowl and out comes a beautiful cookie dough. These luscious Crispy Chocolate Cookies are a dream come true!

If you try this recipe, let me know! Please leave a star rating in the recipe card, comment below, and don’t forget to snap a pic and tag it @theheritagecook on Instagram! Seeing your creations makes my day and I love hearing from you!

 

Ingredients needed for Crispy Chocolate Cookies:

• Chocolate cake mix (GF if needed), crisped rice cereal (GF if needed), melted butter, egg, water (primarily for chocolate cake mixes)

 

PRO Tip:

If you are gluten free, be sure you do not use regular Rice Krispies – they contain malt flavoring that is not safe for those on a GF diet.

 

How to make Crispy Chocolate Cookies:

1. Blend all the ingredients together with a mixer in a large bowl. Use a cookie scoop to form the dough into small balls or use your hands to form them into tightly compressed balls.
2. Place the dough balls about an inch apart (2.5cm) with room for slight spreading on parchment-lined baking sheet pans. Bake in a 350°F (180°C) oven for 9 to 12 minutes until the edges are slightly firm to a gentle touch and lightly browned if using a light colored flavor of cake mix. In my oven it took 10 minutes.
3. Cool 2 minutes on the baking sheets then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

PRO Tip:

The King Arthur Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix I used created very dark cookies. Depending on the cake mix you use, your cookies may be lighter in color than the ones shown in these photos.

 

Recommended Tools (affiliate links; no extra cost to you):

• Kitchen scale
• Baking sheet pans
• Stand mixer or hand mixer
• Mixing bowls
• Cookie scoop
• Wire cooling racks

 

Gluten-Free Tips:

If you are gluten free, buy a gluten-free cake mix and GF crisped rice cereal. Rice Krispies and ordinary cake mixes are not safe for those on a GF diet.

You will get the best and most consistent results by using a digital kitchen scale and weighing your ingredients, especially when you are baking. And use grams, they are much more accurate than pounds and ounces.

All recommended ingredients are gluten-free as of the writing of this article. Always check to be sure the products haven’t changed and are still safe to consume.