The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
A highly researched and perfected classic with all the right flavors.
My Chocolate Chip Cookie Testing Process
Testing Status: COMPLETE
Back in October 2021, I noticed that the chocolate chip cookie recipe I had been using for years was falling flat. From that point, I spent 7 months developing this new chocolate chip cookie recipe. I altered the original recipe, which contained all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract in several ways:
All About the Butter
Butter was an unexpectedly tricky part of developing this chocolate chip cookie recipe. Do you melt the butter, soften it, use American-style, use European-style, or what? Well, here are the answers I found for a nice, soft, and actually buttery chocolate chip cookie.
Should I melt the butter for this chocolate chip cookie recipe?
There are only two times when you should melt the butter for this chocolate chip cookie recipe. First, if you like your cookies soft and somewhat oily with a crispier edge, melt the butter. Second, if you are short on time and just want the cookies right now, then melt the butter. This recipe works with melted butter without all the extra spreading you get with a softer dough in other recipes.
In most cases, please use softened butter (room-temperature butter). When you use softened butter, the white and brown sugar crystals cut into the butter and then dissolve as the mixture creates air pockets, becoming emulsified and fluffy. The mixture (buttercream, technically) becomes the base for a strong and structured cookie.
What type of butter should I use for chocolate chip cookies?
There are two types of dairy butter you can use for these cookies: American and European. American has less butterfat and more water content. European-style butter has at least 82% butterfat and less water content. From my testing, I found that European-style butter creates a much richer, better-structured, and longer-lasting cookie.
Should I brown the butter?
I tested recipes that used solely brown butter, softened butter, and a mixture of both. Brown butter alone left the cookie lacking moisture and baking into a sandy puck. (And I hate the cakier results of adding moisture, like plain water or milk, to a cookie.) Regular butter alone left the cookie lacking body and depth. To compensate for moisture loss and maintain texture and flavor without adding new ingredients, I use some brown butter and mostly plain, softened butter.
Let’s Talk Chocolate
I tested quite a few types of chocolate, and the better chocolates and chocolate ratios were obvious when I reached them. Dark and semi-sweet chocolates were sweet enough, although milk chocolate is good for those with an extra-intense sweet tooth. Dark chocolate on its own was too bitter. Semi-sweet by itself ran flat. Milk chocolate by itself ran too rich. A mixture of dark and semi-sweet proved to be the “sweet” spot.
The exact ratio of chocolate is totally up to personal preference, although I’ve left my preferred chocolate ratio in the notes section of the recipe.
The amount of chocolate came from round after round of trial and error. 275 grams seems to be that balanced medium, where every bite has chocolate in it, but you can still enjoy the dough around each chunk, too.
Which chocolate is best for chocolate chip cookies?
These are the “best” chocolate chip cookies — not the “easiest” or “quickest.” Don’t skimp on chocolate quality here.
What’s most important is that you use couverture chocolate when possible. Couverture chocolate has a higher cacao bean content than other chocolates, which often prioritize sugar and emulsifiers like soy lecithin. I prefer Guittard, Callebaut, and Valrhona chocolates — Guittard being my go-to grocery option. After melting in the oven and coming back to room temperature, couverture chocolate maintains the perfect texture and unadulterated chocolate flavor for these chocolatey beauties.
Other Ingredients I Tested
- Flours: My top goal for this chocolate chip cookie was to achieve a dough that tastes well on its own, without the chocolate chips. I moved away from the usual all-purpose flour and tried gluten-free blends, rye, almond, oat, whole-wheat, bread flour and combinations of each. The final combination of whole-wheat, oat, and all-purpose is absolutely superior.
- Leavening: I didn’t want to alter the chocolate chip cookie taste too much, so I only tested the classic baking soda and baking powder, playing with the ratios until the texture of the dough was soft, strong, and slightly crispy.
- Salts: I had used table salt all my life… until I started testing chocolate chip cookies. Ground kosher salt was the first enhancement to the mix with its large, salty granules. Then, Maldon salt sprinkled overtop the finished cookies ties everything together perfectly.
- Espresso powder: I needed some sort of agent to help enhance the chocolate flavor, and I added espresso powder to accentuate the bitter, mocha notes of the dark chocolate.
- Eggs: The egg is the only ingredient in the recipe that did not change after testing. I found that the perfect egg mixture was 2 egg yolks to 1 egg white.
- Sugars: I liked the sweetness level of my original cookie recipe. For the sugar testing, I tested mixtures of brown sugar, white sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, corn syrup, and more. In this test, I learned that it’s easier to keep things uncomplicated and stick to the iconic brown and white sugar mixture.
- Vanilla: Vanilla extract is accessible and delicious, but it gives baked goods an undeniable alcoholic twang that I do not enjoy. Vanilla paste gives the chocolate chip cookie recipe amazing flavor and pretty specks of vanilla bean all over the cookie.
- Artificial butter and nut flavoring: This is maybe the most important ingredient in the recipe. I call it “sweet umami” for cookies and cakes, because it adds body (overall depth of flavor) to the cookie in a way you can’t get with just butter. Plus, it lets me avoid using nut flours, which means people with allergies can enjoy the cookies, too.
Technique Testing
To perfect this chocolate chip cookie, I experimented with baking temperatures, times, rack positions, and pan material. I also tested mixing times for the butter, sugar, and egg, as well as the mixing method for incorporating the flour mixture into the wet mixture. Lastly, I played around with dough resting times and temperatures.
What Makes These The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies?
They have a long finish. By testing this recipe so much and so methodically, I was able to hone in on one specific goal by the end: a chocolate chip cookie that tastes just as good without the chocolate chips. The dough and chocolate combo in this cookie is something you taste on all sides of the tongue and around the mouth.
They stay soft! Even days down the road, these chocolate chip cookies taste soft and almost fluffy (doughy in a way) without any cakey texture and without tasting underbaked.
They’re made to please anyone. “Best” is subjective, of course. Some people like their cookies in dough form, and others like them as crispy as potato chips. This is a nice in-between: snappy chocolate bits, complex cookie dough, soft texture with slightly crispy edges, and a bit of saltiness for balance. It truly is the best of both chocolate-chip-cookie worlds.
No shortcuts! These cookies will ruin you — as in, you’ll have a hard time feeling satisfied with another recipe. In order to achieve that level of satisfaction, there can’t be shortcuts. Yes, you have to brown some butter. Yes, you may need to source the butter and nut flavoring. Yes, you really should rest the cookies for at least 2 hours. But the results are so so so worth all the “trouble.”
It’s flexible and customizable. The cookie dough in this recipe is perfectly capable of hosting any combination of chocolate (milk, semi-sweet, bittersweet, dark) and still tasting good. You also don’t have to rest the cookies if you don’t want to. Really, if you want to, you can even just melt the butters (no browning) to get these cookies out ASAP, and they STILL come out delicious.
The Recipe
Chocolate Chip Cookie
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole-wheat flour
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup oat flour
- 1 teaspooon instant espresso powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- 275 grams chocolate pieces**
- ¼ cup brown butter
- ½ cup room-temperature butter European-style
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon butter and nut flavoring optional
- 1 tablespoon Maldon salt
Instructions
- Add the flours, espresso powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to a bowl. Whisk for about 20 seconds until fully mixed. Add all the chocolate and mix until chocolate is coated in flour. Set the bowl aside.
- In a large bowl or stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the brown butter and butter for 1 minute until combined. Scrape the sides. Add the white and brown sugars. Beat for 5 minutes on medium-high speed, until fluffy and lighter in color. Scrape the bowl once halfway (at around 2 minutes) and once at the end (after about 5 minutes).
- Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and butter and nut flavoring. Beat on the second-highest speed for 6-10 minutes. Scrape the bowl and paddle every few minutes, making sure every bit gets incorporated.
- Add the flour and chocolate mixture to the bowl. Mix on the lowest speed or hand-mix with a silicone spatula until there’s no more dry flour present.
- Immediately scoop the dough into 80-gram or ¼-cup balls. Shape the dough into pucks and place each puck on a baking sheet or plate. Repeat until all the dough is gone (12-13 pucks). Wrap the baking sheet tightly and cool in the refrigerator for 12 hours. (In a pinch, 30 minutes in the freezer is fine!)
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F, and remove the dough pucks from the refrigerator. Allow the oven to preheat for about 30 minutes, while the dough rests on the counter.
- Place the cookies on a parchment- or silicone-lined cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 13 minutes on the middle rack.
- Remove cookies from the oven. Allow to cool or enjoy hot with milk or ice cream.
