Chocolate
Our 55 Favorite Chocolate Recipes (Because You Can Never Have Too Many)
Featuring truffles, brownies, pies, and graham crackers.
This article is a part of Chocolate Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all chocolate—presented by our friends at Guittard. A fifth-generation family business, Guittard has been crafting an array of chocolate offerings (like top-quality baking chips, cocoa powder, and baking bars) in San Francisco since 1868.
Our best chocolate recipes hardly need an introduction. There’s layer cakes, chocolate cookies, chocolate frostings, mousses and puddings, pies and tarts, and everything in between. But I know you really just want to get to the recipes, so let’s do just that.
1. Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
Before we get into tortes and tarts, sheet cakes and shortbread, we have to start with the most classic chocolate recipes of all time—a soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie. Dorie Greenspan’s recipe calls for 12 ounces of bittersweet chocolate; use a chopped bar or chunks, versus chips, for the most chocolatey flavor of all.
2. World’s Best Chocolate Cake
What makes this the world’s best chocolate cake? For starters, it’s easy! It calls for self-rising flour, which makes putting the batter together a breeze. The batter calls for a combination of Dutch-processed cocoa powder, chopped dark chocolate, and instant coffee granules for the most intense chocolate flavor.
3. Perfect Hot Chocolate
Skip the powdered cocoa mix and make your own warm and cozy mug of hot chocolate from scratch using this four-ingredient recipe.
4. Chocolate Nemesis
You’ll think that you scrolled too quickly through this chocolate recipe and missed the ingredients list, but I promise you didn’t. There are only four ingredients required to make this luxurious dessert from Ruth Rogers, but the result tastes like something far more complex.
5. Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
These are not your ordinary peanut butter cookies, nor are they Grandma’s everyday chocolate chip cookies. The cookie dough calls for both peanut butter and black cocoa powder. But wait...there’s more chocolate in the form of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which are folded into the dough.
6. Double-Chocolate French Macarons
There’s a lot of reasons not to make macarons. They’re temperamental, time-consuming, and pricey to make. But there are even more reasons why you should try them: they taste like a little piece of Paris and will make you feel like a real pastry chef when you nail the recipe (and I promise, you will nail it).
7. Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
We’re going back to basics with this European-style buttercream made entirely with good-quality butter (rather than a combination of butter and shortening) and Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder. Spread it on a cake, pipe it onto cupcakes, or eat it by the spoonful.
8. Chocolate Dump-It Cake
The concept of a “dump” cake may not feel particularly refined or elegant, but the beauty of it is that it uses way fewer dishes and the result is a rich, moist-as-can-be cake.
9. Chocolate-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
These thumbprint cookies are an ode to two beloved sweets: Nutella and peanut butter blossom cookies.
10. No-Churn Chocolate Soft Serve Ice Cream
“This no-fuss, no-churn recipe will deliver a rich, decadent ice cream that’s scoopable the minute you take it out of the freezer,” writes recipe developer Carolina Gelen.
12. 3-Ingredient Flourless Chocolate Mug Cake
Mug cakes seem too good to be true (and they often are) but Assigning Editor Rebecca Firkser developed a recipe for a microwavable chocolate cake that’s actually good.
13. Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart With Rosemary-Quinoa Crust
The chocolate ganache filling is good. Really good, in fact. But what makes this tart something to write home about is actually the earthy quinoa crust. Rosemary and lemon zest are added to the dough for flavor notes that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you know are good.
14. Chocolate Cream Pie
“Chocolate cream pie is one of those desserts that’s implanted in my childhood food memories,” writes recipe developer Kenneth Temple. He said that the trick to a good cream pie is all about the pudding filling; in this case, he used egg yolks and half-and-half for a richer consistency.
15. Intense Chocolate Tart
“This deceptively simple chocolate tart is a snap to put together, but tastes special enough for the fanciest dinner party. The salty, buttery crust only serves to intensify the rich flavor of the chocolate filling. It’s lovely as it is, but would be divine with a scoop of whipped cream or even a drizzle of caramel sauce,” says recipe developer Samantha Seneviratne.
16. Ultimate Chocolate Cake
Erin Jeanne McDowell developed this all-star chocolate cake recipe for Food52’s 10th birthday and it’s as chocolatey as chocolate cake gets.
17. Vegan Salted Caramel Fudgy Brownies
How is it possible to bake a batch of brownies that are this fudgy and completely dairy-free? There’s really no secret—just equal parts of vegan butter and almond milk.
18. Chocolate Granita
There’s not much to dislike about a granita. It's pretty much always dairy- and gluten-free, incredibly easy to put together, and no fancy equipment (looking at you, ice cream maker) is needed. Just be sure to make a little bit of room in your fridge and stay on standby so that you can scrape, scrape, scrape every couple of hours.
19. Molten Dark Chocolate & Black Olive Cake With Caramel Sauce
You thought salt was the only way to enhance the flavor of chocolate, but the trick here is really briny black olives (trust me).
20. Fudgy, Flourless Instant Pot Chocolate Cake
“A PSA for all the chocolate cake–loving, Instant Pot–owning folks in the crowd: this gorgeous, uber-fudgy, flourless chocolate cake is destined to become your new fave,” says recipe developer Jessie Sheehan.
21. Chocolate Fondue
For the most romantic dessert, learn how to make a sultry chocolate fondue paired with fruit, cookies, and more.
22. Groovy Chocolate Sheet Cake
You don’t need a special occasion to bake a cake and this low-key sheet cake is the perfect recipe to make, say, on a Wednesday afternoon.
23. Flourless Chocolate-Walnut Cookies From François Payard
Cookies inspired by a flourless chocolate cake? Yes, please! And walnuts too? Might as well make a double batch.
24. Salted Double-Chocolate Cookies
“The cookies are deeply chocolatey, of course, but also satisfy sweet-salty cravings, and are so wonderfully simple to make, with just enough flair to take them to a holiday level, too. The dough comes together simply—just whisk together the dry and wet ingredients separately, then combine into a dough and roll into slices,” writes recipe developer Shauna Sever.
25. Alice's Chocolate Pudding
Admittedly, a lot of ingredients are needed to make this chocolate pudding, but I promise there’s nothing here that you don’t already have stocked in your pantry or refrigerator. Once you gather everything together, it comes together quite quickly!
26. Tricolor Chocolate Mousse
This showstopper chocolate dessert isn’t just good for birthday parties or holiday gatherings; recipe developer Alice Medrich notes that it was popular among brides-to-be when she made it at her San Francisco-based chocolate shop. “The secret to silky smooth (rather than grainy) mocha and white mousses is in the timing and details: You’ll fold very soft under-whipped cream quickly into barely cool chocolate that’s been melted with water or espresso,” she writes.
27. Chocolate Mousse Pie With Oreo Crust
No chocolate list is complete without an Oreo appearance. The combination of rich Oreo crust, elegant mousse, and fresh whipped cream is balanced, delicious, and fully capable of satisfying your chocolate needs.
28. French Silk Pie with Chocolate-Coffee (Grounds) Crust
Spent coffee grounds and crushed chocolate cookies form the crust for this silky, creamy chocolate pie.
29. Chocolate Cake With Peanut Butter Frosting & Salty Peanuts
A low-key sheet cake with big chocolate-peanut butter flavor, it’s an undeniably rich dessert that’s pleasing to all. The cake is adorned with leftover cake crumbles. The only question that remains is, why haven’t we been doing this along?
30. Chocolate-Flecked Ricotta-Mascarpone Cheesecake
Lighten up the usual cream cheese filling in cheesecake with creamy mascarpone and ricotta cheeses. A spiced amaretti cookie crumb crust and a chocolate chip-studded cheesecake is the ultimate dreamy dinner party dessert.
31. Hervé This' Chocolate Mousse
The ingredients list for this chocolate mousse is so simple, you’ll think it’s too good to be too true. All it calls for is water and high-quality bittersweet chocolate. The result is a silky, entirely vegan mousse that only takes 10 minutes to make.
32. Chocolate, Coffee & Hazelnut Baked Alaska
Chocolate cake paired with coffee ice cream and meringue? Yes.
33. Salted Chocolate Buckwheat Cookie
Buckwheat flour provides a subtly nutty flavor and yields a naturally gluten-free cookie. A single teaspoon of espresso powder brings out extra-chocolatey notes without turning your favorite cookie into a mocha latte.
34. Tahini Chocolate Shortbread Bars
Inspired by chocolate seven-layer halvah, Melissa Clark created a shortbread hybrid cookie with tahini and dark chocolate, an unexpectedly good combination.
35. Grandma's Chocolate Swiss Roll
A chocolate Swiss roll (which is also the basic makings of a Yule Log cake) certainly looks intimidating to make, but this prized family recipe is surprisingly simple.
36. Panetón & Hot Chocolate Bread Pudding
Looking for another use of Italian panettone or Peru’s panetón? Turn it into a bread pudding tossed with sweetened condensed milk custard, warm spices, and a silky chocolate sauce.
37. Peppermint Hot Cocoa Cookies
Hot chocolate in the form of cookies? Yes please! This one also makes for the perfect cookie swap or food gift to send to loved ones during the holiday season.
38. Chocolate Ermine “Pudding” Buttercream
If you love the lightness of mousse and pudding fillings but the body and structure that buttercream offers, our Chocolate Ermine is the best of both worlds.
39. Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies
A mocha latte in cookie form, these amped up cookies have a serious chocolate flavor, thanks to a couple of tablespoons of espresso powder. Oh, and did I mention that this recipe was voted our readers favorite chocolate cookie? Well, it was!
40. Chocolate–Peanut Butter Mousse
I am team chocolate-butter, always and forever. And I am also team two-ingredient recipes, always and forever. So is Food Editor Emma Laperruque, who developed this easy luscious mousse that’s vegan to boot.
41. Slow-Cooker Chocolate Chip Cookie
42. Actually Good Black Bean Brownies
These black bean brownies combine the best qualities of flourless chocolate cake with traditional brownies and somehow become vegan along the way.
43. Triple-Chocolate No-Bake Cheesecake
Three layers of white chocolate, milk chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate are stacked on top of one another in the form of ultra-creamy layers for this crowd-friendly cheesecake that requires absolutely no baking at all.
44. Chewy Sumac Brownie Cookies
Sumac is widely used in the Middle East and North Africa and is prized for its tart, lemony flavor. “There hasn’t been one thing I’ve added it to that isn’t improved, especially dark chocolate. You don’t taste the sumac, per se, but you can definitely taste a more intense chocolate punch,” writes recipe developer Jake Cohen.
45. Extra Chocolatey German Chocolate Cake
The hallmarks of a good German chocolate cake include good chocolate (obviously), plus an ooey-gooey filling of pecans and coconut. Recipe developer Jessie Sheehan likes to coat her cake in a little bit of chocolate frosting, but feel free to leave it off altogether.
46. Hot Fudge
“A shiny, gooey, very chocolatey hot fudge that comes together with just sweetened condensed milk and unsweetened chocolate,” says Food Editor Emma Laperruque. Once it’s ready, serve warm (of course) with ice cream (preferably vanilla or coffee), frozen yogurt, Greek yogurt, pudding, or by the spoonful. Can you tell that that’s my favorite way to eat chocolate?
47. One-Bowl Chocolate & Orange Sponge Cake
Chocolate and orange can be a decisive flavor combination, but for those who love it, this light cake is a winner. The orange flavor makes an appearance in both the cake batter (zest and extract), and as a garnish in the form of chocolate-covered oranges.
48. Chocolate Bundt Cake
When you clicked on this roundup of our best chocolate recipes, you were probably hoping for a really good cake recipe. We delivered. This one was voted by you, our readers, as your favorite chocolate cake recipe.
49. Chocolate-Covered Honeycomb Candy
Homemade candy is such a great DIY food gift, and this recipe can be enjoyed year-round.
50. Red Wine Brownie Cookies
We are huge fans of recipe developer Jesse Szewczyk and we really love his red wine cookies. There’s no need to use ~fancy~ red wine; anything you have on hand will do, including a little bit from a few open bottles, he says, which makes us love him even more.
51. Chocolate-Porcini Truffles
Porcini mushroom powder gives a savory kick to the sweet and decadent chocolate truffle.
52. Greek Yogurt Chocolate "Pudding"
If you have six ingredients and a stand mixer, you’re five minutes away from this chocolate “pudding.”
53. Chocolate Milk Bread
This chocolate milk bread is good on its own, better as a peanut butter sandwich, and best as French Toast a few days after it's baked.
54. Chocolate Cinnamon Graham Crackers With Toasted Marshmallow
A graham cracker is dependably delicious. But when baked at home and mixed with chocolate and cinnamon, it becomes peak luxury. Serve with toasted marshmallows or your favorite nut butter.
55. Joyous Almond Butter
Good news: This nut butter lasts for two months if placed in the refrigerator, so you’ll have time to try it on all sorts of breads, crackers, and treats.
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