Chocolate chip cookies are my favourite food. Raw, baked, hot, cold; I don’t care, I love them. The perennial question: which is the best recipe for chocolate chip cookies? I have tried many. All the common ones. The New York Times recipe is my favourite, but its a complex cookie that takes some time (due to the 36 hours chilling). So I am constantly on the lookout for a second favourite recipe; one that can be whipped up quickly when the cookie craving calls, but that still bakes up chewy cookies with great flavour.
The amount of recipes out there baffles me. And commonly the only difference between them is 1/2 cup sugar or a little extra flour. I scour blogs and baking books for new recipes, and each time I find one I try it I end up loving it (because I love chocolate chip cookies) and filing the recipe away. I have so many now and I’m still not sure which is best.
So one day I came across a few new recipes that i hadn’t tried before and decided to bake them both at once. That way I could compare them against one another, decide which one is better, and maybe one day figure out the absolute best recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Here is the winning recipe of the two, Cook’s Illustrated’s recipe for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies.
THICK AND CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
This recipe comes from Baking Illustrated. It bakes an absolutely delicious cookie. Thick, chewy, moist and yummy. Make sure to try the tip for breaking and re-forming the cookie balls; it makes them look like they have come straight from a professional bakery. Most importantly, take the cookies out of the oven when they are JUST golden and still a little undercooked in the center, as they continue to cook when you take them out and you don’t want them to go crunchy (because that would defeat the purpose of “Thick and Chewy”).
165g unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled until warm
1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar (7 ounces)
1/2 cup white sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups + 2 tbsp plain flour (10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips or chunks (milk or dark)
Mix together the flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside.
Using an electric mixer or a wooden spoon, beat the butter and sugars together until smooth.
Add the egg, the egg yolk and the vanilla and mix until combined.
Add the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips until mixed through the dough.
Refrigerate dough for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 170 C and line 3 baking trays with baking paper.
TIP: To assemble the cookies, roll 1/4 cup or large tablespoons of dough into balls using your hands.
Hold the dough balls with the fingertips of both hands and pull the balls into two equal halves.
Rotate the halves 90 degrees outwards, and with the jagged surfaces facing up, join the halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie ball and being careful not to smooth the dough’s uneven surface. They should look like this:
Place the formed dough balls onto the prepared trays, jagged surfaces up, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes or so, reversing halfway through baking, until the cookies are light golden brown around the edges and still soft and puffy in the centres. Cool the cookies on their trays. Makes 18 large cookies.
These cookies are DELICIOUS!!! They are thick, and have a perfect chewy texture without being under baked. They actually look like they have come from a cafe too. I almost preferred them to NY Times because they are so thick and chewy, but they only stay good on the first day. After that they go soft, so if you want to have these over a few days, keep your dough in an airtight container in the fridge and bake it in batches each day. Everyone loved these. They have become my new go-to recipe (with NY Times being saved for special occasions). Bake them. You won’t regret it.
I came across your blog in a rather serendipitous way, and thought that I would pass along my personal chocolate chip cookie recipe. I think you will find it superior to all the rest you have tried! If you hesitate to put salt on the cookies or use as much bittersweet chocolate, then you can mix 2/3 60% and 1/3 milk chocolate, but resting the dough makes all the difference! : ) Let me know how it goes for you!
I forgot to leave the link! Here it is! http://acookingmizer.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/the-worlds-best-chocolate-chip-cookie/
Hi Alice! Your recipe is actually the New York Times recipe which (if you read above) is my all time favorite! It bakes up the most delicious, chewy cookie that stays perfect for days! However, this post was all about finding an easier, quicker recipe that can be made in half an hour and eaten straight away (when I can’t wait 36 hours!). And the Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies do just that. They are fantastic – try them and let me know what you think! (I’m sure you’ll be hoarding them in your pockets and eating them all too!) Natasha
LOL, yes I have made a couple modifications, and dont use the chocolate discs, but it is amazing! The cookies are good, even if you dont wait the 36 hrs. I always make a few up to get me to day three
… hmm.. if I come across an equallly amazing cookie for a half hour or less, I will come back and let you know!
I don’t use chocolate discs either, I usually chop up a couple of blocks of my favourite milk chocolate, and I make them regular-sized.
Also – you don’t have to leave the dough for 3 days, 36 hours is one and a half days!
Please try the first recipe in this post for thick and chewy cookies, they are soo good!
I know how long 36 hours is. Also I like to bake in chopped up bits of 70% cacao and put the sea salt on them, it is a richer cookie and so satisfying!
Yum! I have to try them with a mix of milk and bittersweet chocolate. I’m just afraid I’ll eat the whole batch!
If you are going to do a mix, I would use a heavier hand on the bittersweet and add a touch of salt on top before you bake, or it will taste like all milk chocolate and the extra few pennies you spent on getting the high quailty chocolate will be for not! : ) Enjoy! I should send you some of the chocolate chip cookies from around here so you can compare them to American baked…they are a bit weird.
OK thanks for the advice, I’ll try it and let you know!
And I’m from Australia! I wonder if UK cookies are very different to ours? I hope to move there next year so I will get to taste test them all!
I have been to America a couple of times but the only cookies I ate there were the NYT ones I baked for my family. I regret not eating any, but I was just overwhelmed by ALL the food everyone was taking me to eat!
PS. your puppy is super cute i want to squish him!
Hmmm… I don’t know! It’s hard to explain a taste also you know? And of course, homemade cookies are going to beat the commercial ones everytime, but sometimes its nice to just pick up a bag of Keebler cookies for a picnic or drive. I’m going to make the cookies using UK products instead of American, like the sugars and flours, etc to see if it makes a different cookie so I can try to identify what is so different about the cookies between the countries, since the recipes are basically the same – just in metric. hehe! Lol thanks, my puppy likes her face to be squished! : )
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Hey Butter,
I tried these cookies today, with a few variations, I only made half the mixture and used left over easer eggs instead of choc chips and added some instant coffee (inspired by your other espresso recipes) and they turned out great, everyone loved them. Another great recipe, thanks.
You’re very welcome Karmaloop. You’re cookies sound awesome, loving the Easter eggs and coffee.
I’ve just made them, and they’re amazing … <3 <3 <3!!! Have you tried the avoca repice, however??? Don't put in any baking power, and you get lovely, thin chewy-cruncy-melt-on-the-tongue-type cookies! hre's the link: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=avoca%20recipe%20for%20chocolate%20chip%20cookies&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Ffood%2Frecipes%2Fchocolatechipcookies_72335&ei=6jaUT-S1BJSxhAfP7pCiBA&usg=AFQjCNFuGkX9wGDJrgjysFYJxpvjBsLxaw
Thanks but I’m not a thin and crunchy cookie girl.. thick, fat and chewy all the way for me! Glad you liked them
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Hey there! I just made these cookies and they turned out AMAZING! definitely my new fav chic chip cookie recipe! thank you so much for this! i’d love to refrigerate the leftover dough and make another batch of them on wednesday when I’m going to visit my family…can i keep the dough in the fridge until then? please answer sooooon
much love
ps. your blog is my favorite – i always love to cuddle up in bed and look at it
Hi Larissa! I’m glad you liked the cookies, they are a favourite of mine too! So you baked them yesterday and want to keep them in the fridge until wednesday? It depends really, because some recipes say you can only keep dough in the fridge for 72 hours max, some say one week, and I have read food scientists say it starts to go funky after 1 day. So you have to be the judge of whether you’d trust dough that has been sitting in the fridge for 4 days with raw egg in it! If you’re not sure, try rolling it into balls and freezing them, then baking them up from frozen. They will bake up a little differently and take slightly longer in the oven, but you’ll have fresh cookies at least!
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Hi Natasha, I love your blog. I don’t’ usually follow too many blogs but I always come back and read yours and have a look at your recipes because i think they are wonderful. You seriously need your own bakery called Brown Butter with all these recipes. Then you can go global, and I will know wherever I go I will get the best baked goods in your store. I read up on how you started up and I wanted to say I think you are great and always follow your dream.
I need to bake up some cookies later this week. I’ve decided to follow your oatmeal chocolate chip recipe because i’m a little tired of the one I currently follow and need something new, but I am still deciding between also baking these cookies and the original NY times cookie. What is the main difference would you say and how does the bread flour make any difference? Did you use brown or white bread flour ? would there be a difference between the two if i used brown instead of white flour?
Hi Nellie!
Thank you very much for all of your kind words! It is very lovely of you
The cookies are very different. I would just choose one or the other! The oatmeal ones are obviously thicker and more wholesome due to oatmeal, and the NY Times ones more like a regular cookie.
Bread flour makes them chewier. I use regular white bread flour.
When you’re baking Nellie just stick with the recipe exactly. It’s like a science and until you understand yourself how the ingredients affect the formula, it is best to follow recipes precisely
Hi, so i have tried your recipe a couple of times now and just cant get them to splurge and look like yours! I am in New Zealand and have mention that cups can be different measurements in different areas of the globe so wondered if you could send me the recipe in all grams? Love the flavour of the cookies but am just looking for a flatter one than im getting! Ha! Hope you can help.
Carrie
Hi Carrie! Do you have a kitchen scale? If so you can set it to ounces and go from there. Otherwise 1 ounce = 28g, so 7 oz would equal about 210g
Good luck!!