This is the best, no fail recipe for big chocolate chip cookies with gooey centers and crispy edges. Slightly chunky, super chocolatey, with a rich vanilla base. Chocolate chip cookies are a classic, year-round fave. There are so many recipes out there to choose from, but follow this recipe to a T, and it will not disappoint! This recipe makes about 18, two-ounce each, chocolate chip cookies.
These cookies come together quickly, and then are either chilled before baking or shaped and frozen to pull out for a fresh-baked treat on demand. I love having a batch of these in my freezer to pull out a make as a gift.
Here’s how it’s done
Step 1: gather The ingredients
Start by pulling out all of your ingredients. My favorite trick for perfect chocolate chip cookies every time is measuring out all of the ingredients first. Once you get that out of the way, they come together so quickly, and you’ll never forget to add anything. Combine the sugars in one bowl, the butter in another, then the flour, chocolate chips, and the rest of the dry ingredients in separate bowls.
Step 2: Cream the Butter, Sugars and eggs
One crucial step in getting the dough juuust right in this recipe is getting the butter the right texture. I find that taking butter directly from the fridge and softening in the microwave until it just starts to melt makes for the perfect dough base. Take a look at the butter in the image above – your melty softened butter should look like that!
Then, our the butter into a large mixing bowl and dump in both sugars. Using either the paddle attachment on your mixer, or a handheld mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light brown in color and fluffy in texture. Add one room temperature egg and one egg yolk to the mixture, and blend until it’s beginning to hold some shape and look like it’s forming peaks.
(If the butter and sugar mixture looks runny or lumpy, the butter was too soft and you need to pop the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes or so and try again before adding anything else.)
Step 3: Add dry ingredients
Once you have the butter, sugars, and eggs blended together, add the baking soda, salt, arrowroot powder (or cornstarch), and vanilla. I use vanilla powder, but you can absolutely use vanilla extract. Honestly, I only use vanilla powder because I have it on hand to put in my coffee in the mornings (Try it. So good), and I use it in my Snack Ball recipes.
Next, add the flour in gradually, but don’t over-mix. Once the flour is almost all blended in, dump in the chocolate chips and give it a few stirs.
Step 4: chill the dough + shape
Then, cover and refrigerate the dough for at least two hours, and up to overnight. When the dough is thoroughly chilled, heat your oven to 350°F, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Also – I’m not sure why I had been using a “half cookie sheet” for a bazillion years, but I recently invested in a couple of full-size cookie sheets and man – game changer. Oh! And a cookie dough scoop. If you make cookies enough, I highly suggest grabbing one for even sizes and baking. This is what I use and I love it.
If you don’t have one, using a 1/8 cup measuring tool will do the trick to get you the right size. They won’t be perfectly round – that’s okay.
Step 5: Bake the cookies
Finally, bake! Space the dough balls on the baking sheet about 1.5″-2″ apart, and bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. The centers might still be a bit doughy, but that’s okay.
Step 6: Cool
Leave the cookies on the sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to to a cooling rack to help finish baking. If you like, sprinkle the cookies with a tad bit of flaky sea salt as soon as they come out of the oven. I don’t worry about the shape, but if you do, you can use the “cup trick” – while the cookies are still on the warm baking sheet, turn a cup upside down and swirl the edges of the cookies around to force the edges into a circle. A biscuit cutter will do the same thing.
There ya go. Best chocolate chip cookies ever. Share them, gift them, freeze them, eat them. All of it. People will thank you.
Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer
- 1 Large Mixing Bowl
- Baking Sheet
- Measuring Cups
- Parchment Paper or Baking Mat
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter softened well, starting to get melty
- 1 1/4 cups Brown Sugar packed
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 1 Egg room temp
- 1 Egg Yolk room temp
- 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Powder
- 2 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp Arrowroot Powder Cornstarch works too, if you don't have this on hand
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1 3/4 cups Chocolate Chips
Instructions
- Mix butter and Sugars together in a large bowl using a stand mixer or handheld beater.
- Add egg and egg yolk to the butter and sugar, mixing and scraping down the sides of the bowl if needed until the consistency is fluffy.
- Mix in vanilla, arrowroot or cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
- Add flour 1/2 cup at a time and mix just until there are no white streaks left.
- Stir in chocolate chips
- Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours. (Alternatively, you can scoop and shape dough balls to freeze and bake later.)
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator and scoop, using a 2 oz scoop or 1/8 cup measuring tool (you can just eyeball this is you don’t have either – it’s about the size of small scoop of ice cream) and place 1.5″-2″ apart on the baking sheet.
- Bake about 13-15 minutes, removing the cookies from the oven just as soon as the edges turn light brown. If they are still gooey in the center, that’s ok! Leave them on the baking sheet to cool for about 10 minutes, and they will finish baking.
- Sprinkle with flaky sea salt while still warm on the cookie sheet, if desired.
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