Could anything be more perfect for a winter treat than these festive spiced orange rum brownie cookies?
Such a warming combination of cinnamon and nutmeg flavours combined with orange and spiced rum, and most important of all – chocolate! They're also super quick and easy to make, ready in less than 30mins!
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These brownie cookies are great warm and fresh from the oven, or after they've cooled and gained that gooey chewy texture.
One of my favourite things about these fudgy brownie cookies is that they make an amazing gift. This is especially true for Christmas and the Holidays! They slot perfectly into a food hamper or look adorable gift-wrapped and tied with some festive ribbon.
Alternatively, enjoy them as great festive party food, or just snaffle them all to yourself. All equally great ideas in my opinion!
✏️ Recipe creation
Brownie cookies are the delicious hybrid of a brownie and a cookie. It's basically a chocolate chip chocolate cookie with extra fudginess and a crackly top like a brownie.
These spiced rum chocolate orange brownie cookies are a perfect winter treat. If you love chocolate orange as much as I do, you'll also love this best-ever chocolate orange cake and these easy chocolate orange cupcakes.
I started with a recipe for the ultimate gooey chocolate brownies and then tweaked them. They needed to better hold their form when baked, despite the addition of the spiced rum. Throw in some chocolate chips, orange flavour and spices and you’ve got a chewy brownie cookie to dream about!
To make these chewy chocolate cinnamon orange brownie cookies as easy as possible, this recipe uses orange extract. Much simpler than grating your fingers zesting a real orange!
🥘 Ingredients
This chocolate orange brownie cookies recipe calls for the following ingredients:
- Dark chocolate: use semi-sweet baking chocolate
- Unsalted butter
- Egg
- Light brown soft sugar
- White sugar: caster or fine granulated sugar
- Orange extract: extract is better than essence for flavour
- Spiced rum: dark or spiced rums are more flavourful than the white rums
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Salt
- All-purpose plain flour
- Baking powder
- Unsweetened cocoa powder: the baking type like dutch-processed
- Milk chocolate chips
See the recipe card for quantities.
Tip: When measuring your ingredients, I always recommend using weights rather than cups where possible for greater accuracy. Use measuring spoons for your teaspoon and tablespoon amounts too!
♻️ Substitutions / Variations
For an extra chocolate orange treat, you can put a slice of Terry’s chocolate orange on top of your cookies when they come out of the oven so it melts onto it.
If you’d like a more gooey molten centre, you can turn the temperature of the oven up a little and bake the cookies about 2-3mins less. Let them cool a little before enjoying your deliciously warm cookies!
This recipe is for spiced orange rum brownie cookies from scratch, but you can also buy a boxed brownie mix. If doing this, follow the instructions on the box and add your spices, orange extract, rum and then an extra 2 tablespoon plain flour and ½ tablespoon cocoa powder.
I like my spiced orange flavour to have quite a warming kick (they do mellow out a little over time though). If you’re not into very spicy flavours, I’d recommend only putting in two pinches of cinnamon.
As with all my boozy bakes, I recommend using your favourite brand of alcohol for this recipe. There are so many great types of rum to choose from, such as Tortuga rum (used for world-famous rum cakes). Or you can go for a nice Jamaican rum, Caribbean rum or any spiced rum of your choice!
You can also use a dark rum instead, or if you’ve got a light / white type of rum on hand already, add an extra pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon to your brownie cookies to up the delicious spice flavour.
📖 Method
- Preheat oven: 180°C / 160°C (fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350°F
- Heat the chocolate and butter in the microwave until melted and smooth.
- Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy and combined.
- Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture, then add in the orange extract and rum and stir until smooth.
- Sieve in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, then add the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, stirring together until just combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips until only just spread evenly throughout.
- Using a tablespoon (or ¼ cup scoop), spoon the brownie mix onto a lined baking tray, leaving a few inches between scoops and bake for 10-12mins until risen and a papery texture on top.
- Allow the brownie cookies to cool on the tray before moving them and enjoy!
💭 Top tips
- When these orange brownie cookies come out of the oven, they’ll be quite soft. They'll firm up as they cool to give that fudgy chewy goodness and have crispy edges like a cookie. If they’re not firm enough, pop them in the fridge before serving.
- These Christmas brownie cookies have quite a punchy heat when fresh. But don't worry, they tend to mellow out a little over the next few days (if they’re still around for that long!).
- Allow your orange brownie cookies to cool on the tray for 10mins or so before moving them to a wire rack. Otherwise, you’ll risk them breaking.
- Use a ¼ cup scoop or 1 tablespoon scoop for the brownie batter. Simply scoop and upend it onto your lined baking tray. Don’t worry too much about them not looking as smooth as cookie dough, they will still look nice once baked.
- If possible, try to keep the brownie cookie dough roughly ball-shaped mounds, the taller the better!
- The cookies will spread as they bake so leave a few inches of space between scoops on the tray.
- If you want your cookies to look extra cute, you can save a few chocolate chips per cookie and add them to the top of your cookies as soon as you take them out of the oven. These will melt slightly onto the top of your brownie cookies.
❔ Recipe FAQs
You can store your festive brownie cookies in an airtight container. They should keep for up to 4 days stored at room temperature.
If you like your brownie cookies to be a bit firmer and chewy, you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge. They should keep refrigerated for up to 5 days in the fridge.
Yes! You can freeze your rum chocolate brownie cookies wrapped in cling film and foil or in an airtight container for up to 2 months. Defrost in the fridge and enjoy!
🧁 Other goodies
For a gluten-free version, check out this gluten-free chocolate chip brownie cookie recipe!
If you’re feeling festive, then why not take a look at my collection of Christmas & The Holidays recipe ideas – so many festive treats to choose from!
These recipes are great to enjoy on Christmas day or give as gifts to friends and family, such as a mason jar vegan cookie mix Christmas gift.
If you’re into a boozy bake (and let’s be honest, why not treat yourself) then you might be interested in my recipe for a boozy Baileys cupcakes, Whiskey caramel cupcakes, Baileys Irish cream chocolate cheesecake or bourbon pecan chocolate chip cookies.
Other Related Christmas Recipes:
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!
Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?
📋 Recipe
Spiced Orange Rum Brownie Cookies
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Ingredients
- ⅔ cups (115 g) dark chocolate semi-sweet
- ¼ cups (60 g) unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cups (75 g) light brown soft sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoon (35 g) white sugar caster or fine granulated
- 1 ¼ teaspoon orange extract
- 3 tablespoon spiced rum
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 1 pinch salt
- ½ cups (60 g) all-purpose plain flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- ⅓ cups (80 g) milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven: 180°C / 160°C (fan) / Gas Mark 4 / 350°F
- Heat the chocolate and butter in the microwave until melted and smooth.
- Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy and combined.
- Add in the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture, then add in the orange extract and rum and stir until smooth.
- Sieve in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, then add the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, stirring together until just combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips until only just spread evenly throughout.
- Using a tablespoon (or ¼ cup scoop), spoon the brownie mix onto a lined baking tray, leaving a few inches between scoops and bake for 10-12mins until risen and a papery texture on top.
- Allow the brownie cookies to cool on the tray before moving them and enjoy!
Notes
- Swap the plain flour for self-raising flour and exclude the baking powder.
- You can swap the rum for another spirit like whisky or bourbon.
- Instead of the spices in this recipe, you can swap them all for ¼ teaspoon of an all-spice blend (e.g. pumpkin spice).
- Use dark semi-sweet chocolate from the baking aisle for ease of melting.
- The cookies will spread as they bake so leave a few inches of space between scoops on the tray.
- Let the brownie cookies cool on the tray before moving them so they don't break.
- Sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt on top of your brownie cookies when they come out of the oven.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator, actual values may vary.
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