For the last few weeks I’ve been busy testing recipes in order to develop the perfect chocolate chip cookies.
Perfect is a huge word when it comes to cookies, because everyone looks for something different in their ultimate choc chip treat. But I wanted to create my own recipe, one that took everything I loved in a cookie, smashed it all together and made the most amazing chocolate chip cookie I had ever tasted.
I wanted to make a cookie that’s super chewy, thick, soft inside and just crispy around the very edges. I wanted my cookie to have depth of flavour and to stay flavourful and chewy for a few days after baking.
And after a couple of trials, I gotta say, I nailed it.
My perfect chocolate chip cookies start with brown butter. So there’s no waiting for your butter to soften before making your dough or anything like that. Nuh-uh. Straight into a pot the butter goes, so it can get nutty and fragrant and delicious.
They also have lots of brown sugar, which give them good spread, caramel flavour and that chew that I love, but there’s still enough white sugar (and a little cornstarch too!) in there to make sure they are still thick and bitey.
I love adding some ground up coffee to my cookie dough too. It doesn’t make the dough or the cookies taste like coffee at all, but it just adds to the deep, rich caramel undertone that’s so damn good in a chocolate cookie. The brown butter, vanilla extract and high ratio of brown sugar help with that too. Then resting the dough in the fridge before baking makes the cookie’s flavour even better.
So there we have it, my hunt for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe is over! And I hope you love my ultimate, thick, chewy, chocolate chip cookies as much as I do. X
- 220g unsalted butter (1 cup)
- 250g brown sugar (1 cup + 2 tbsp)
- 110g caster (superfine) sugar (1/2 cup)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp instant coffee granules, finely ground
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 eggs
- 315g plain flour (2¼ cups)
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 300g chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips (1½ cups)
- First, brown the butter. Put the butter in a small saucepan over a high heat. Cook until the butter melts, bubbles up, then begins to turn golden brown at the bottom of the pot. Remove from the heat.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the browned butter, both sugars, vanilla, coffee and sea salt until combined.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time until combined.
- Add the flour, cornstarch and baking soda and beat on a low speed until just incorporated.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Use a medium cookie scoop to drop balls of dough on a lined baking tray, cover this with cling film and refrigerate overnight.
- The next day, preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) or 160 C (320 F) for a fan oven and divide the cookies between a few lined baking trays. Optionally, sprinkle each cookie with a little sea salt.
- Bake for 9 minutes, until lightly golden around the edges. Allow to cool on trays.
- Makes 22 cookies.
- Happy baking!
Recipe by Natasha of Butter Baking.