Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies – Bake from Scratch

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1 month ago

Everybody’s got a type. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been refining your chocolate chip cookie taste from the time you were a kid scarfing down your mom’s or grandmom’s special recipe fresh out of the oven. Maybe you like yours flat and crunchy, so thin it could be a cracker. Maybe you prefer a mountainous chewy-on-the-outside, gooey-on-the-inside (and heavy-on-the-chocolate) cookie with flaky salt sprinkled on top. Maybe your favorite cookie is soft and airy throughout. Maybe it just depends on your mood.
Chocolate Chip Cookies in jar These cookies are the great equalizer, incorporating a bit of character from several styles of cookie, and most similar to what you’d get if you baked the recipe on the back of a bag of Nestlé Toll House chocolate chips. The molasses in brown sugar adds extra moisture to the dough, which creates softness, and granulated sugar promotes more browning, which means more crunch. However, using equal volumes of brown sugar and granulated sugar balances out their characteristics. Using two leaveners—baking powder for lift and baking soda for spread—helps create a puffy, chewy middle and crunch around the sides. A quality semisweet chocolate with a cacao content of approximately 60% ensures your final cookies aren’t too sweet, and letting the dough rest briefly after mixing lets the flour hydrate and develop flavor.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 24 cookiesThese cookies are buttery, caramelly, chocolaty, not overly sweet, a little crisp, and a little soft—true crowd-pleasers.

1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
¾ cup (165 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs (100 grams), room temperature
2 teaspoons (8 grams) vanilla extract
2¾ cups (344 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (3 grams) kosher salt
½ teaspoon (2.5 grams) baking soda
2 cups (340 grams) semisweet chocolate chips

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars at medium speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, stopping to scrape paddle and bottom and sides of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating just until combined and stopping to scrape paddle and bottom and sides of bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Using a 3-tablespoon spring-loaded scoop, scoop dough (about 55 grams each), and place on prepared pan. Cover and refrigerate while oven preheats.
Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place dough balls 2 inches apart on prepared pans.
Bake, one pan at a time, until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Let cool on pan for 5 minutes. Remove from pan, and let cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

PRO TIP: For cakier cookies, preheat your oven before mixing dough, and bake immediately after scooping. For chewier cookies, refrigerate scooped dough for at least 1 hour or up to overnight before baking.