crispy chewy chocolate chip cookies
Nevertheless, the description of the ideal chocolate chip cookie was perfect — crisp at the edges, soft in the middle, and pretty much summed up what everyone is looking for in their chocolate chip cookie nirvana. Of course if you ever caved and bought a package of their cookies, well, I’ll be nice, but let’s just say they certainly didn’t live up the cookie dream for me.
And I hope that there isn’t some unsaid limit on the number of chocolate chip cookie recipes a food blogger can post and declare them all her favorite. What? I have fleeting, flitting loyalties. Mostly I like whatever is in front of me.
But after the feves and the sea salt and the buttery enormity of Leite’s Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookie a few months ago, I got to remember this classic recipe I put on the site back before any of you read it. Originally under the name “Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies” I’ve found that you can make them quite tiny and they still maintain that crispy/chewy ideal, so long as you don’t overbake them. So promise you won’t overbake them, okay?
One year ago: Chicken and Mushroom Marsala
Deb went on vacation and all I got were these lousy chocolate chip cookies! Wondering why your comments aren’t being responded to at the speed that you’ve come to expect? It’s true, we’ve flown the coop and we’ll be back at the end of the week. But come on, we left you chocolate chip cookies — you shouldn’t have to miss us at all.
Crispy, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from AllRecipes.com
These cookies have a lower chip-to-dough ratio than our earlier favorites and a thicker, softer thing going on than the consummate cookies, to help you differentiate them. But when I’m looking for a classic cookie, kind of like the old school Toll House recipe but better, even, this is what I go for.
As always with cookies, you can scoop, flash freeze and then freeze the cookies until you’re ready to bake them, or to bake a few off at a time. You can bake them straight from the freezer, adding a few minutes to your baking time, of course, or let them thaw out on a tray for a while.
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.
3. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time (for giant cookies) or a tablespoon at a time (for smaller cookies) onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
5. Bake larger cookies for 15 to 17 minutes, or 10 to 12 minutes for smaller ones (check your cookies before they’re done; depending on your scoop size, your baking time will vary) in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Whoo hoo! First commenter. I’ve always wanted to be that person!
This post gives me something to try with 3 kids home today due to snow. My agenda: cookies, snowmen, cookies, and a movie.
Oh, and I tried to hold back, but I can’t. Try the white chocolate bread at Club Med if you haven’t already, it is addictive.
That photo of the chocolate chips falling into the bowl is WONDERFUL. And I bet the cookies aren’t bad either…
Chocolate chip cookies are always the perfect cookie. I can never get enough.
Delicious!!
how did you capture that pic of the chips going into the bowl like that? That is fabulous!
CLASSIC!!
They look PERFECT!
I love a low chip to dough ratio. Not that I don’t love chocolate, but I love the flavour of a good cookie dough… And I love that it’s just a little bit cruncy. Dang. Do I really have to go to work? Can’t I stay home and bake?
I love the picture of the chocolate chips falling into the bowl.
I can almost hear them yelling ‘WEE!’
After seeing the pictures on David Lebovitz’s blog this morning, I am only marginally appeased by chocolate chip cookies. But whoa! Don’t these look yummy! I have been searching for cookies like the one made by my neighbor’s housekeeper when I was a child; these just might be the right ones! Since I can’t be on the beach with all my favorite food bloggers, I guess cookies will have to do.
Perfect for a cold wintry day in Washington, DC! Thanks Deb.
After reading an NYTimes article at the end of last year, I started leaving my dough in the fridge overnight–it really makes a difference! maybe I will try that with half the dough and bake half the dough. And eat the first half because I’m a martyr like that.
Oh No! Now I really have to try this recipe today!! :)
Awesome. Looks like a fantastic, standard go-to recipe. :-D
It’s possible I’m being daft here, but do you mean scant tablespoons or rounded ones?
oh my goodness – these look almost as good as the last chocolate cookies you did (the ones using those special chips that looked like little “o’s”. Love the picture of the chips falling into the bowl. Yum!
fantastic. love the photographs and this makes me want to run to kitchen and start baking!
This is the recipe I use too – we love it! I use a 1 T cookie scoop, flatten the gough-balls slightly, and bake for 12 minutes. I get 36 cookies per recipe. When I don’t need the whole yield, I roll the remaining dough in a log and freeze. I slice and bake the remainder another time, in 1/2 inch slices they bake to perfection in 14 minutes.
these look… um… REALLY good!!!
I made these on valentines day for my boyfriend using the old recipe :)
Nom nom nom.
I just posted Jacques Torres’ Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies.
They truly were amazing!
They used more salt and pastry flour. Worth the extra effort.
They were crispy though, not chewy.
More cookies?! I cannot wait! I love cookies.
Oh, I’m done for. Now I must make these.
Ohhh! Crispy AND Chewy! That would satisfy everyone at my house!
What perfect little dough-balls. I need to get myself one of those little scoops. And maybe some of these cookies. Hope you’re enjoying the vacation!
deb, i found a recipe that looks divine but needs your tweaking! (boxes bad!) help!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies – http://bakerella.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-01-18T10%3A17%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=10
Yum, yum, and yum!! Now I feel compelled to make all of the choco-chip cookie recipes you’ve featured and do a side-by-side taste test. It’s important to be scientific about these things!
Gotta love any recipe that freezes successfully! I was think of baking something later today so I am thrilled to have found this cc cookie rendition. I will be baking and freezing the afternoon away!
This is the Cook’s Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe with a little extra vanilla. It’s my all-time favorite! I’ve never made them small before but will give it a try. It will be easier to share them if they’re small. Oh…wait!
I made a huge batch of Chocolate Chip cookies Sunday when it was snowing here in Georgia! My well-loved recipe is from Country Living Magazine (Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies) – you can look it up on their website. But. . . this time I used 3 kinds of chips! Ghiradelli White Chocolate chips, Bittersweet choc chips and semi-sweet choc chips! The results were amazing and went well with the big pot of chicken and rice soup I made for our wintry day! I’m going to trt your recipe this weekend! Thanks!
Deb–if you haven’t yet, you should try the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the Baked cookbook (I know you have it since you’ve done a bunch of recipes from it!). It’s really cookie nirvana. Baked makes their cookies really big, but I did mine smaller (rounded teaspoons) and they still had the wonderful crispy outside chewy inside combo going on. My husband–a chocolate chip cookie addict–has declared them the best he’s ever had.
Now you’re talkin! I like less chocolate in the CC cookies because I love the toffee flavor of the cookie, it needs to balance the strong flavor of the chocolate. I don’t want chocolate fingertips from excess goo either. I want all the chocolate in my mouth, thank you very much! I agree with DL’s recipe instruction about not over creaming the butter and sugar too, it ruins the crumb.
I bake one pan of the cookies per day when I make a batch and leave the rest to chill, wrapped tightly, in the fridge until the next day so I can have them fresh for a few days. CC cookies are so rich, they get stale too soon..and the chips harden. That’s not good at all!
Do you know, I’ve been a long time lurker here for about a year and a half now, but I just had to comment to say I made these exact cookies yesterday, how bizzare !
Jenna x
I’m so relieved to see this. I make my cookies by melting the butter and underbaking, or at least baking till the cookies are brown on the edges, and doughy white everywhere else, and the result is crisp-chewy, so the two qualities are not mutually exclusive as I was led to believe by comments I’d seen in an earlier SK post. If only all dilemmas were this easy to solve.
I love chewy chocolate chip cookies! I may just have to steal this recipe! Thanks!!
Yep, this is my recipe for cookies, and everyone always says they’re the best chocolate chip cookies they’ve ever eaten. I love them.
I’m obsessed with the monster cookies from Levain Bakery in the west 70s. They’re enormous and they stay tall instead of spreading out… Which means the insides are almost raw! How do they do it? Thankfully, I think they ship!
And we didn’t like the Baked chocolate chip cookie recipe :( Too cakey.
These are nearly identical to my fallback recipe for chocolate chip cookies (Alton Brown’s “the chewy”), except WAY less butter… and I’m suddenly wondering what all that butter is doing for me. I’ll have to give these a try – you know, for the sake of scientific experiment.
Just the thing to perk up my baking confidence again – muesli cookies FAIL, but choc chip cookies will definitely kick their butts.
Grrrr, I’m out of town and can’t get to a kitchen for a couple days! I’m craving chocolate chip cookies now. these look fab.
Hey Deb,
I’ve been making a similar recipe all winter. The big secret to making them soft and chewy is some time in the freezer. I put them in over night and I haven’t tried timing it and all that. What I have done is bake a few before freezing and some after and the ones that were baked after were much better. They even stayed soft after a day or so. I heard on NPR at some point that there is a chemical reason for this – something about giving the gluten time to bond with the wet ingredients which it does better in cold temps.
You are not in cold temps though. I hope you’re having a great time. See you Saturday!
Wonderful! Nothing like a good, simple, chewy chocolate chip cookie. Thanks for sharing, and have fun on your vacation!
I LOVE finding good chocolate chip cookie recipes, especially because there are SO MANY recipes out there! I can’t wait to try these. :)
yumyumyum. I love crispy on the outside chewy on the inside.
Have you tried the nyt cookies? Should I comb your site for them? They are good – but they give you a heart attack. I think it is all the sugar. Are these cookies very sweet? Can I take out some sugar without the cookie imploding?
yum! crispy and chewy is definitely ideal. i wish i could find or invent a similarly delicious vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. then i could truly die happy.
Love the shot of the chips falling into the bowl…makes me want to reach out and grab a hand full. Trying not to think about chocolate chip cookies now.
I definitely remember those commercials! How funny!! These look so good. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside is definitely the way to go.
I definitely should NOT have checked out this post before eating lunch!! Your delicious cookies have only made me hungrier, and I wish I didn’t have to go to work so I could do some baking instead!
AMAZING!! That picture of the chips falling into the bowl…would I be a complete nerd if I said it was positively poetry in motion?
Yum! In my mind, there’s never a limit as to how many chocolate chip cookie recipes you can call a favorite!
I underbake all my cookies by about one minute to get chewey centers. Your recipe seems like it achieves the cheweyness without underbaking. Nice!
Wow. Great shot of the chips falling into the bowl. You must have had some extra hands for help.
Can’t wait to try these. They look yummy.
these look delicious. wish i could just grab a couple :)
You are my best friend and I love you. You are looking especially thin these days, and I love your new haircut. Nice shoes. You’re so smart! Thank you for this recipe…
these have been my ‘go to’ recipe for years now – by far my favorite :)
Making gelato yesterday and decided would do it chocolate chip cookie dough stylie. left out baking soda as i was not planning to bake it..all fine and dandy.
BUT…then there was dough left over…chilled it over night then roughly mixed in the baking soda before scooping and baking…oh boy. i’ve made this recipe before and was very pleased. didn’t think it could get any better. the outsides were a thin-crusty-chewy nirvana, inside an intense soft almost fudge-like cookie dough (yes they were cooked thoroughly…)…definitely a interesting way to make the cookies…but i’m going to stick with that way for now.
Those look perfect. I can never get my chocolate chip cookies right.
Oohh, those photos made my mouth water! Cookies for lunch?
Love the freeze framed like cascading into the bowl suspended in mid air chocolate chips! In my family we bakethis recipe, the classic toll house, or a cream of wheat cc cookie recipe–always refirgerating/freezing prior to baking. It began when I was little and my mom used to prepare cookie dough in advance as a time saver while she was raising us kids. After a while, she noticed the cookies were tastier whenever the cookies were from refrigerated/frozen batches. As time went by, we noticed a variety of foods are actually sometimes tastier when defrosted and rewarmed. Certain soups, cakes etc Anyway, we sometimes play around with the cookies and add in toasted pecans or coff chocolate chips. I know. Sacreligious to cc cookie purists . ..
I love these. I have made them several times, and this is my go to recipe, so thank you! They are soft enough that my husband likes them (he can’t stand crumbly cookies) but still have some bite for me. I keep saying I’m going to try the consumate, but I never have EVERYTHING on hand when I want to make cookies so these are still it (plus who wants to wait for cookies).
Dang it now I need to make another batch of these.
PS. For those of us that have enought counter space for a toaster oven, they bake up nicely in there two so you can do up to 4 at a time without heating up the house.
Perfect! They are the perfect combination!
This may be a little random, but I love the picture with the chocolate chips suspended in mid-air. Wheeeee!
I just made these, and the three dozen resulting super chewycrispy cookies are going to last a total of TEN MINUTES once the man gets home. I’ve never made chocolate chip cookies with butter in them, but I’m thinking I like it. :o :o
Thanks for the recipe! <3
I really had no intention of baking this evening, but here I go again…. I made your blueberry crumb bars over the weekend and they received fab reviews. By the way, when I went on to your site today to see what recipe you left us with (as you bask away somewhere nice and those of us in the Northeast are freezing and sick of snow) I just had to stop and stare at the photo of the chocolate chips. Great picture!
I love chocolate chip cookies. Yours look delicious. I love the shot with you pouring in the chips!
i’ve subscribed to your site not too long ago and i love, love, love your photos and the recipes you post up! i will definitely have to try them out myself! by the way, those chocolate cookies look very delish. :]
I was wondering if anyone has any tips for baking the cookies after you freeze the dough. I tried this for the first time – with two different doughs – and none of my cookies had a nice shape – they didn’t really flatten out. I saw above that Sharon puts her dough into a log and freezes it that way. Are there any suggestions for keeping them as individual scoops? Thanks!
@Dawn-
I have had that same issue as well. Sometimes (depending upon the recipe) I find it helpful to flatten the scoops of dough a bit before freezing. It seems to help them spread more evenly and attractively when baking. :)
The idea of freezing and having chocolate chip cookies ready on the whim is most appealing. Yours are so perfectly shaped!
I know everyone has their favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I truly do believe that mine is magical – a coworker introduced me to it (his mother developed it in a home ec class decades ago and has been perfecting it since) and as much as I love my job, I think it may be one of the best things I’ve gotten out of working there (kidding, NileGuide. Kind of.)
Adding a bar of grated chocolate to the dry ingredients and replacing about 1/2 the flour with oats ground up in a food processor are the keys – softer middles, richer flavor…I’m convinced this recipe will help me snag a husband someday.
I love making choc chip cookies. Normally a fan of the Ghiradelli recipe. I don’t do Toll House any more. This one looks like a winner! Thank you! My son is 5 and he has been requesting to make cookies with me and has been helping me since he was 2.
I love your pics, especially the action choc. chip photo!
YUm!!!! I tender to “undercook” my cookies- I prefer them tender and chewy with a slight crisp on the outside :)
You can never post too many chocolate chip cookie recipes, in my opinion. Thanks for the reminder that I’m past due on eating some!
I had to make these tonight since your previous cc cookie recipe has been my favorite since you posted it. These cookies are more true to the Toll House version I made and ate as a kid. My vote is for these ones. My fiance bit into one and said, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
Since I really really love chocolate chip cookies, well, it does actually soften the blow for me that you are on vacay and I’m not. I just hope you are all enjoying yourselves and tell us all about it!
i was wondering what sort of difference the melted butter makes in the cookies
I don’t remember if I have written this to you or not, but you’ve got to try Marcel Desaulnier’s recipe “Mrs. D.’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.” They’re his mother’s recipe, in the book Death By Chocolate Cookies…with only brown sugar and vanilla and dark rum for flavoring, they are intense and AWESOME! I’d love to hear your opinion! I can’t make any other cookies, because they are my hubby’s favorite–and he never loves anything!
These could not look more perfect!
This is my go to recipe. I bake them all the time. In fact, I have some dough in my fridge and freezer. I actually decided to go with half peanut butter chips and half chocolate chips for the batch I will bake tomorrow. Yum.
I have to tell you no one makes me want to get up instantly and make a recipe like you. I did it with your first mac and cheese recipe, your zucchini and almond side, your light wheat bread, several pizza recipes. I just absolutely love your blog. It’s so exciting when I go to the site and see a new recipe. Hope you are having fun!
Yvonne,
It improves the consistency of the dough (melted butter does a better job of creaming the butter) and I think it makes for the crispy edges too. I used to use the softened and after trying melted, I see a huge difference. You have to chill the dough however if the butter is melted or you will have flat cookies.
Hope this helps.
These look amazing! I love your pictures.
Dawn,
My trick for baking these cookies is a cookie scooper I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond (after many many times of making this recipe). I think it is 2 tablespoons. What I do is I take the dough out of the freezer (if you have had it in there until frozen solid, if for only an hour, it’s a different story) and let it thaw on the counter until it is at the point where I can take a serrated knife and cut it into hard pieces. I take enough pieces to fit the scooper and push it in there-it will be hard and cold. I then take a butter knife and put it around the edges of the scooper to ease the dough out. It makes for perfectly shaped cookies and the cookies bak great. In my oven, I bake these at 325 for 15 minutes. The cookies should look undone, it’s okay. If you bake them until they look done, they are really overcooked because they will harden up like hockey pucks on you. When they are cooled, make sure to put them in a tupperware. A few hours on the counter will make them like hockey pucks even if you didn’t overcook them. Hope this helps.
Anne,
Rounded tablespoons.
I figure I might as well answer what I can while Deb is out considering I know the recipe well.
I’ve done this recipe. It’s quite a nice cookie, but 1 tbs of vanilla is a bit much for my taste. Otherwise, I do love this cookie. :o)
My favorite chocolate chip cookie – although I know it as the Cook’s Illustrated Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. Even after I try other recipes that claim to be “the best”, I keep coming back to this recipe. They are especially great with dried sour cherries. Yum!
i saw a post about this…
the recipe page makes it look even more absolutely delicious ^^]
I don’t think we have semi-sweet choc chips here (Australia)…would you recommed milk chocolate and dark chocolate chips? A combination of the two perhaps?
Hello From Geneva !
Thanks you very much for your recipes, i’ll try your brownies tomorrow!
I love your blog,it is so nice !
Hi, Jem.
I just moved to Australia from the US, and I have been using the dark chocolate chips in place of the semi-sweet ones with lovely results.
Your blog never fails to make me hungry :-) These look fabulous!
I love how you took the pictures of your cookies… and the cookies look real great.. Yumm Yumm ^^
I just made these, and my husband LOVES them. He wants to have 10 for lunch tomorrow. Maybe because it’s hot here in Singapore, but I had to pop these in the fridge for half an hour before scooping, they were impossible to scoop nicely otherwise. I am really thrilled at how they really are crispy and chewy, but I did think they were a little too sweet… I suck at cookies though, so this one is definitely my best attempt EVER! Hope you’re having fun Deb!
Mmmmm. To an English expat in NYC these look like heaven. I haven’t been able to find cookies I really like here, so I guess ‘;m going to start baking! LLGxx
Hmm … that recipe is really similar to the recipe I use from Cook’s Illustrated. They make the BEST chocolate chip cookies. Period. I had a cook-off at my husband’s office one day and had everyone vote on their favorite choc. chip cookie – this recipe won, by a HUGE margin. Make a double batch and freeze some of the dough to make sure you can have them anytime! They are that good!
what beautiful cookies! these look just perfect!
yum! I’m afraid to make these because I’ll eat them all by myself in one day. :) we made your ratatouille recipe last week and it was soo good. the kids loved it; I was surprised because they usually aren’t veggie lovers. thanks!
I just made these, and they are delicious–classic chocolate chip cookie flavor, good chip/dough ratio, and fabulous combo texture! I’ve only baked a few trays of them and now I’ll try freezing the rest. This to prevent myself from eating them all.
Now off to the gym!
I did couple posts of CCC also. Love them. What can I say. Another one recipe to test. Thanks. I usually bake half the batch and freeze the rest for when I have a urge to eat CCC. Beautiful pics!
I just baked a batch of Leite’s Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookies. I will have to give this recipe a try, just what I need, another chocolate chip cookie recipe. Every time I try a new one, my husband declares it the new best recipe. Have you ever tried the recipe from Once Upon A Tart? They are very, very good. They were the house favorite until the Consummate Chocolate Chip cookie recipe was tried. Perhaps we will have a new favorite…
I have to try this recipe! I love the shot of the chips cascading into the pan! Gorgeous! I can’t wait!
I’m going to make the dough tonight – and on the advice of the NYTimes article from last year – bake them tomorrow so that the dough can rest overnight. I find that its easier for this NYer to make cookies over two days – esp because I need to let my butter come to room temp in order to cream it (my kitchen is smaller than my cubicle at work so there’s no room for a kitchenaid mixer!)
After the popularity of the carbomb cupcakes at the ski house, I’m going to try and wow them with this recipe – from all your comments, it seems like this one’s better than Toll House – I can’t wait to see!! wish me luck!
This is my “go-to” chocolate chip cookie recipe; I love them! I’ve made them several times and they always turn out perfectly. They are especially good served warm right after they are baked. I’ve noticed that men especially love these :)
I scoop mine with an 1/8 cup measure for really big cookies.
As noted by other commenters (Colleen@28 and Melissa@87) this recipe is remarkably close to the Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe put forward by America’s Test Kitchen via Cooks Illustrated. Yes, the melted butter is important. Ditto for the baking soda. I’m not sure if freezing the dough will matter, but some commenters suggested that it does.
One significant difference between your method and Cooks Illustrated lies in your use of the cookie scoop. In the Cooks recipe, they suggest trying to give the unbaked cookie dough a more jagged top surface. They suggest that you form dough balls of the proper size, then pull them in half, rotate the torn middle edges to the top, and smash the two halves back together. (The illustration helps.) This technique insures that the top surface of the unbaked dough has the maximum surface area and insures that the baked cookie will maintain a crispy top side.
Your photos show that the tops of these cookies simply melted down to a flattened surface as the cookie spread. To insure the most crispiness, the Cooks method is superior.
These look wonderful–but is there really a full tablespoon of vanilla?
LOVE those falling chips! Wish I had one (or lots more) right now….
the ultimate comfort food :) love it!
Aw Man! I have been so good, and now I am going to run home and bake those cookie!
My son was just asking me to make chocolate chips cookies last night. Another wonderful recipe to try. Keep them coming!!
Hey there — I really the *other* cc cookie recipe you posted a while back. Not the Times one (though I like that too — and have such dough in my freezer now), but the one with the surprising number of finely chopped pecans. The nuts end up adding to the butterscotchy quality of the dough, rather than acting as an addition like the chips themselves. Don’t forget your old favorites just because some new chocolate chip cookie recipe comes along strutting its stuff!
Yummo!! The last time I made chocolate chip cookies they went kind of crunchy (which I’ll live with because I can wash it down with milk), but will have to give this recipe a try.
You’re such an organized little baker too – even your raw dough is in tidy little balls, whereas I just plop mine on in a pile off the spoon :/
Sorry, I just made your ‘favorite’ chocolate chip cookies for the first time this past weekend, the ones that use cold butter, and I’m not ready to think about anything else. I wished to make another batch the next day as I only got two out of the first batch but my husband advised me against such an unhealthy decision. Can’t wait for this weekend to make them again! (I do cut the number of chips in half for all my recipes.)
You have summed up everything I look for in a cookie. Thanks for sharing!
Because of the melted butter, was able to come home after work and make a quick half batch (but used the full tbs of vanilla). Left half the dough in the fridge for an hour (froze the rest) and we gobbled them while they were warm. Thanks much for the recipe!
Thanks for the recipe, these were delicious! I added Skor toffee bits to the dough too – the only thing better than crispy, chewy chocolate chip cookies is crispy, chewy chocolate & toffee cookies, yum!
I have a batch of these cooling on the counter. My daughter saw your site yesterday and said well, we need to try these now. They’re great — soooo soft in the middle. Not the kind of cookie that would hold up well if you packaged them up and send off as a gift…as if the cookies would last that long in the house anyway!
Just made these. They are the same as the Cooks Illustrated, as others have been saying. However, I made them with ONLY A CUP of CHIPS, and found that it was absolutely enough chips. Its kinda funny, seeing that others cut down on chips too!! I used to think I was the only one who did that. I love baked goods, sweets, just as much as the next person but I dont like things in which the predominant taste is overwhelmingly sugar and I find that is the case when cc cookies are overcrowded with chips. Also it really helps to cut costs!…especially when you bake something almost every day as I do.
Since visiting your site, my Husband and my prenantal drs office have gained about as many lbs as I have. I was shocked at the amount of chips you put in, but who am I to go against the recipie grain. second batch cooling on the rack, quality tested one from the first batch and um wow! *sigh* these are the cookies mik and santa dream about.
Why oh why am I torturing myself by looking at all of your recipes and pictures?
I am type 2 diabetic and for a long time my blood sugars have been out of control insane for me. 300 were the numbers and normal is between 90 something and 120. So, my diabetes doctor just put me on a diet of slimfast and nothing else. Not even a sensible meal like the commercials suggest. For seven horribly long days I am only allowed 4 cans of slimfast and if I must eat it can only be carrots or cellery. Lots of water. On the bright side my numbers are down to 180. I thought it was impossible. If I don’t die then I might send the doctor a thank you note…if I don’t kill him first.
I just found your site late last night. My sister in law is getting married and my mother in law isn’t hiring a planner or caterer. Just someone else to make the wedding and grooms cakes and that’s it. We are in charge of all the other food and decorating. She’s obsessing over the decorating of the tables. So I spent most of the night looking on the internet for ways to decorate wedding cake tables. Some how I found your site. It stopped me in my search for decorating and now I am obsessed with clicking on your “surprise me” button. I know it’s like pouring salt on an open wound each time I see the pictures load up and I see a tempting recipe but it’s a good pain I think.
Anyway I just wanted to say that even though I can’t eat anything for another four days I keep looking at recipes of things I want to make as my “first meal” after my week of hell.
These chocolate chip cookies were on my computer and my husband walked by and he said, “Oh My Gawd, I will eat your computer right now, seriously.” My poor husband, he saw what I am going through and he’s decided to join me on my slimfast punishment. He’s not fat though and he isn’t diabetic. He was raised on cookies like these and they are his favorite.
Seriously I keep hitting the surprise me button and indeed I am surprised. It’s like the easy button. You make these things look so easy to make. Thank you for sharing these pictures and the recipes. Keep them coming.
Oh yeah and I am going to share the steak sandwich that you posted before the cookies with my mother in law. She’s planning on having sanwiches like that but on croissants.
I believe you succeeded in making the chocolate chip cookie look ’sexy.’ :)
looking at your cookie photos reignited a cookie craving i thought that i had gotten over XD so i made some with maca powder and walnuts. yumm :3
I just made chocolate chip cookies a few days ago, but this reminds me that I need to make more, and soon!
Deb, one can’t have too many (great) choc chip cookie recipes. Bring them on! :D
These look delish.
I just found your site thanks to one of my best friends. She live in MD and I’m living in Istanbul, Turkey at the moment. Sometimes I can find all the ingredients, sometimes not. But your recipes always inspire and, in the case of these cookies, make my mouth water. It’s like foodie porn! Thanks for blogging.
I LOVE reading these recipes and these comments–I feel I am so late to this party! But I love everyone’s ideas of chocolate chip cookies. Deb’s look terrific–and I’m a BIG fan of the crunch. Not quite potato chip cookies, but almost. (Has anyone tried those? The chocolate chip cookie recipe that requires a bag of crushed up potato chips?) My personal go-to recipe is actually a vegan chocolate chip cookie made with tahini and maple syrup–and I’m the farthest thing from a vegan.
Sounds great. Everyone needs a good, basic chocolate chip cookie recipe.
I MADE THESE…i couldn’t help myself, i was reading the recipe and HAD TO HAVE THEM. yuuummmmmmmmmo. thanks!!! i love your site, everything i’ve made–which isn’t much–has been awesome–just like from barefoot! enjoy your vaca!
So I came home yesterday afternoon and there was my husband in the kitchen, sheepishly scooping out cookie dough onto cookie sheets. His excuse: “You really shouldn’t leave your Smitten Kitten [OK, he got your name wrong] emails where I can find them!” :) (we share an email account, so he really wasn’t snooping) He’s a better baker than I am (although I’m a better overall cook, so there!), and they turned out yummy, although I would add a tiny bit more salt and some nuts. But hey, who can complain about coming home to fresh cookies??? And yes, these ARE better than the toll house recipe.
these were pretty much the best cookies I’ve ever made. and I make a lot of cookies.
you have changed my life. om nom nom nom nom nom.
I think I just found a baking project! These look great and are the exact type of cookie I like. Thanks for sharing!
How do you “flash freeze?”
There is no better way to eat chocolate chip biscuits. Chewy & crispy is a must!
Am hoping you see this when you return: how do you measure your flour? This is the second time I have tried one of your cookie recipes and had problems and suspected that my flour measurement was off. I always weigh flour–126 g for 1 cup which is the weight I have gotten FOR ME through repeated testing when fluff, scoop and level. My Espresso Ch. Chip Shortbread were VERY dry and then for this recipe looking at your dough and looking at mine yours looks drier–and mine did indeed spread in the oven. Hoping for some insight, because your cookies look fabulous!
Deb you are KILLING me! I have already made at least 5 batches of the oatmeal raisin cookies from the other week. All variations have been fantastic. NOW you are throwing these down too! OK, ok, I’ll make them…
Theses look yummy! I think they have a great look…not flat and not crunchy looking. Something lovely to try.
Oh Deb! Dear, dear sweet Deb! I love to cook and I will cook anything. I’m not afraid of cakes and I’m not afraid of ethnic foods and I’ll try almost anything. But COOKIES. Cookies terrify me! I’ve tried recipes from 101 Cookbooks, from Epicurious, from you, from any place that published a beautiful cookie. But no matter how I adjust the flour, the egg, the baking soda, the cook time, they all turn out like glass.
But THESE cookies turned out beautifully. Crisp and chewy just like I have been searching for and turning out terrible cookies time after time after time for. Thank you so much! Now I might just bake cookies all the time…and maybe my curse will be broken!
Oh my goodness! I must make these!
i have just made a batch of dough and left to sit in the freezer for a while (due to complete lazyness), but when i can find the strength to leave my bed i will bake them……
*thinks* or i could just eat the dough…
Hi Deb! Love your website, recipes & pics. I was thinking about replacing the flour w/ whole wheat flour. Will that make them too dense & dry? Should I make other modifications to the butter and or eggs to compensate? Thanks so much for any advice you or others may have. Hope you had a terrific vacation!
Hi Jess — I have not tried making chocolate chip cookies with whole wheat flour (ever) so can’t give you advice, except that I would not go for a full swap unless you’ve tried a 1/3 or half-swap and feel confident it could handle more … heaviness.
I just baked these and they turned out beautifully! I used some of the dough to make some cranberry walnut cookies for my husband who is not a huge fan of chocolate chip. Thanks!!!
mmmm these look so good! i’ve been looking for a chewy cookie for ages…all the ones i try come out too crispy! thanks for posting these!!
made the, ate them, loved them! my new favorite. thanks.
I have been in search of the “perfect” cc cookie recipe for ages. Had one I liked from Better Homes and Gardens (of all places) from 1995 or so. I really liked it because it had NO leavener. Don’t know about you all, but there’s always an aftertaste of baking soda that’s really off-putting to me. I tried the crazy NYT recipe that came out last year (Jacques Torres) and they were mediocre, but the chilling works well. Will try these, hoping they are soft in the middle. Has anyone left out the b soda and gotten a good result? Thanks and I dig the site!
I just tried this recipe today! I substituted whole wheat for all-purpose flour and they turned out wonderfully. I even took a picture, but I can’t compare to your photography skills.
here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pillowhead_designs/3336092219/
These are fantastic! For too long I have used the Toll House recipe and tried to figure out how to warm up the butter to “room temperature” in a kitchen that is freezing cold in the winter. I love being able to just melt the butter.
I made these cookies exactly as the recipe says (measuring flour with the scoop-and-sweep method, and they turned out perfectly. Thank you for sharing this excellent recipe.
As a first time post I must follow suit and say how much I have admired this site. It is purely gobsmackingly lovely. Thanks.
My favorite cookies were from when I was a girl and living in Nairobi. We couldn’t get chocolate chips so we would chunk up a milk chocolate Cadbury bar or two. We used melted butter and that lovely rough cane sugar that you get so cheaply overseas. It really was wonderful. Half brown and half rough cane sugar and Cadbury chunks was the perfect combination.
These were delicious! So yummy, and my friends LOVED them. Thanks for the great recipe! I found it on my first visit here, but will be sure to come back now.
very yummy!!! going to make them right now.
Wow, you are making me hungry gal! will definitely try them, thanks for sharing.
Delicious clicks.
i made these cookies this weekend and they were freakin’ awesome. my most favorite chocolate chip recipe to date.
I just made these with all whole wheat flour (I was out of AP!) and dark chocolate chips – AMAZING!! Thanks Deb! :) I love, love, love your blog!
Oh and for Jess, even with the whole wheat flour, the cookies were still crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. They were excellent, and moist from that butter! :) I can only imagine how yummy they are with regular flour!
I hope you’re still reading comments from this post! I am very excited to try this recipe but I’m interested in adding peanut butter. Do you know how you would modify this recipe to include peanut butter while still keeping the crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside qualities?
Thanks once again Deb for another ‘to die for’ recipe. I made them today and they are divine!!! It is times like this I am reminded that moderation is not my strong suit! Somebody stop me!!!!
Made them last night and they are amazing!!
i started rolling cookie dough into freezer paper and twisting the ends closed, kind of like a tootsie roll – then when I want cookies, i just pull out the roll, slice off as many cookies as i’d like, and pop them in the toaster oven. i dig the suggestion to flash freeze, but i find the roll works with no adverse effects to taste or texture.
Hi!
First time commenter here – I had to come out of the woodwork to say thank you for these cookies! I’ve just finished making them and already my boyfriend and I have eaten too many! (Although is there really such a thing as “too many cookies”? With these ones I think not!)
Thanks!
I 2nd or 3rd (havent read if anyone else is also requesting) #25 comment from Pam. Would love a tweaked delicious recipe for chocolate cookie dough brownies!!!
sorry – chocolate CHIP cookie dough brownies :)
Like a blondie recipe? There’s one in the archives. I have never heard of another kind of chocolate chip cookie dough brownie.
OMG…we just made these and they are so rocking good….thanx for the recipe.
Jess,
I have tried the recipe with one cup ww flour, and it worked great! It tasted the same as the all AP batch.
Oh yes, a blondie! I checked out the recipe and will definitely be making those. Thanks!
Hi Deb!
I finally got around to making the cookies…and regretting that I didn’t make them sooner! I ended up substituting the full amount of flour with whole wheat. They taste amazing! I think this is the first time that my cc cookies are soft after they cool. LOL. I’m not sure how many cookies will be baked (my husband’s been tearing through the cookie dough). Thanks for providing the recipe & suggestions. Also, Tara thanks for your tip too.
Seriously the best cookies ever. Thank you!! I even blogged about them. That good.
My husband just made these for me and they were AMAZING! We can’t get enough of them. He made full site and bite size.
Love them!
Thanks!
Oh man, I will have to try those for sure! Thanks!
yummy! Does anyone have an idea how I could substitute the semisweet chocolate chips? Unfortunately I’m having a hard time finding those in Munich, Germany.
It’s a rainy day in Georgia and this was the perfect activity for my three kids and I. It doesn’t hurt at all that I think this is one of THE best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. I love the crisp edges and chewy center. Plus, they’re pretty:-)
Wonderful! I made these exactly as written and again with some improvisations. I didn’t have chocolate chips so I chopped up 1.5 bars of Cadbury’s Royal Dark. Then I formed the dough into a log, chilled in the refrigerator overnight and sliced them the next day. Turns out that the crisp edges of the slice and bake method really appeal to me! I thought they looked perfect that way. These cookies are just as delicious either way.
Hey Kelley,
I’ll try it with dark chocolate, thanks for telling me how you did it.
These are the best cc cookies ever. My cookies usually suffer from thin-and-crunchy-itis, but these were chewy and crisp as promised – and even soft the next day. everyone had multiples…i will definitely use this recipe from now on. thanks Deb!
Hi Deb,
I’m a big fan of your website too – Thanks for all your recipes. I was wondering why you use the egg yolk. Is it possible to just use a whole egg instead? I can never figure out what to do with the remaining egg white and end up throwing it away so I’m trying to avoid it. Thoughts?
Thanks!!!
I am sure you can try it with two whole eggs, but usually when a recipe needs half an egg, it tells you to just use the yolk, which is the richer part. I sometimes save whites in a container in the freezer. I more often chuck them.
These look perfect – soft and chewy, just like I love them. I’ll be looking out for a small ice-cream scoop to make it even easier to make them the same size.
I hope you don’t mind but I have linked to this post as one of the new recipes I’m trying in the next week.
Thank you!
Thanks, Deb! I made these yesterday – they are divine! The problem is how do you stop at 1 cookie??!! I did use the whole egg and they taste delicious..And best of all, they are so easy to make.
Thanks again….
Hi,
Just a question for this delicious recipe:
You use a tablespoon to scoop the dough and place in on the baking paper. Do you flatten the dough on the baking paper or do you leave it as little balls? If left as balls, do they ‘flatten’ out later while baking? As you can see, I’m not the most experienced baker around! :) let me know, thanks!
First let me say that, since I stumbled onto your blog about 5 months ago and added it to my favorites toolbar (to check daily), I have tried several of your recipes – none of which failed to delight me and my family. One of my new favorite meals is the Tomato & Sausage Ristotto. And now… you’ve done it. You have provided me with salvation from a life doomed to seek the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. In the words of Rickie Bobby (even though I still don’t get why people think Talledega Nights is so funny), “That just happened.” I’m good now. I will never, ever, EVER be tempted to sample another chocolate chip cookie recipe promising “commercial bakery-like results” or “best ever cookies.” Nope. I’m finished. I made these for my husband’s birthday yesterday, and after sampling them, decided that this was indeed cookie nirvana. Crispy on the bite-into but heavenly chewy sweet/salty on the inside – through and through. Thank you!!! I did use chocolate chunks instead of chips, then scooped and froze the dough balls and baked them after a brief thawing interlude on the parchment paper-lined tray before the oven warmed up, and lo and behold: the PERFECT COOKIE!!!! Gratzi!!!
that is the most beautiful cookie i have ever seen.
I have tried all of the chocolate chip cookie recipes on this blog, as well as some others from popular bakers and food blogs…and this cookie is by far my favorite. I am so happy that I decided to freeze the dough in ball shapes. Perfect for the the Thursday night cravings ;-) Thanks, Deb!
Made these for the second time now. Fabulous. Even better with dark brown sugar. I went for 2 medium sized eggs and had great results. Love it. I wonder if these like the consummate cookies would benefit from 72 hours in the fridge before baking?
i need these cookies.
i have to stop looking at your website (and drooling over photos).
i have laundry to do.
Just stepping away from the kitchen to say thank you for this recipe!
When I was about 14 I ate an entire bag of Duncan Hines cookies in a day. My mother was mortified / livid. I was hungry, what can I say? And they were good, but not quite as satisfying as they should have been.
Thanks again – the second batch is about to come out of the oven.
Hi! I made these cookies for my bosses bday on March 17th. I bake quite a bit and have to say this recipe is great!
I used dark brown sugar and also used 1 cup of Dark chocolate chips and 1 cup of semi sweet (and I think next time I will use all dark chocolate!).
They were a huge hit and people were saying they were better than the Magnolia Bakery goods we had next to them :) They were gone in litterally minutes. Thanks :)
Just made these tonight. Super good. I upped the amount of chocolate chips–just because we are chocoholics! Thanks for another great recipe!
This dough taste almost exactly like the kind in Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream. That may be due to my over zealous splash of vanilla extract…but that’s OK.
These could get me in trouble.
I’ve been a Nestle Tollhouse traditionalist forever (thanks to my mom’s making them every two weeks to pack in lunches from Kindergarten thru high school…and then in care packages to college) and I typically scoff at adaptions from that classic which I know by heart.
UNTIL I tried this one. OMG. Its everything that a CC cookie could be. Thank you for fiddling around and adapting it. These are now our new standby, and the cookie plan on making for my kids’ lunches forever :)
The dough was pretty good, but these cookies no matter how we made them did not come out very good. Nor were they very soft. I love the pics and the hope that they would be good, but I had no luck with this. I have been baking for 15 years and worked in a bakery and always looking for new stuff, but this just didnt work for me.
However, I do love alot of your other stuff!
I just made the cookies the other day, and THEY WERE THE BEST I’VE EVER MADE! And I’m not even a good cook. Seriously. I’m awful. But the recipe was simple, easy, and the end results looked beautiful! They gave me some much needed confidence in my abilities. Thanks so much!
These are in the oven and they are smelling really good. Thanks for the recipe. I really like how they’ve kept their shape and they haven’t gotten flat. I haven’t tasted one yet because I feel all sugared out right now, but if I were judging them just by the look and smell I’d give ‘em a 10 out of 10. Thanks Deb. Love your blog. Looking forward to seeing photos of your little one. I have one on the way too! It’s so fun, well except for that first trimester when I didn’t want anything to do with my kitchen. Come on July!!
Just had to tell you that this is now my fave choc chip cookie recipe. I especially like that it comes together fast because I always forget to take the butter out to soften and now don’t have to. I apparently like an extremely low chip-dough ratio, because 1 cup of chips is just right for me (and 1 cup chopped walnuts). Plus, I tried substituting Trader Joe’s White Whole Wheat flour for the whole amount and they’re still awesome. OK, so the dough is not my fave to eat from the bowl because of the melted butter (this is probably a good thing), but the cookies … they dry out quicker than others, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem since we can’t stop eating them. THANK YOU!!! (Ps – sorry for your new kitchen issues. Yuck.)
My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe by far! I love it! I used margarine instead of butter. They didn’t rise as much, but were still chewy and crispy. The first batch was eaten up in less than 24 hours. Thanks a million!
Delicious…Strangely enough, these cookies poofed up like crazy. Melted butter, no fridge time..hmmmm. (emphasis on the mmmm)
I loved the taste of this cookie. Abs Delicious. I did not have ice-cream scoop, so I made the dough into a log and cut it into slices, and then used my hands to make it spherical/roundish. One problem though was that the cookie did not spread out completely like they should, instead, they were like thick discs. Not sure what went wrong. Any suggestions? Thanks much, I love your site and I follow it..
ooof … I’m the biggest SK booster out there (your recipes have somehow fooled my friends/family into thinking I’m some sort of expert baker/chef/goddess of pineapple upside-down cake), but these just didn’t work for me. Maybe because of the low oven temp, my tbsp-sized cookies never achieved that golden-brown, slightly caramelized edge that normally signals “done” to me, and tasted sort of raw when I pulled them out at the peak of suggested cooking time — leaving another batch in longer only led to brittle, dry, but still very pale cookies. Good flavor but just a weird texture all around. Not that they didn’t get eaten up anyway, of course! :) Next time I’d try one of your other versions.
hi there!
I have only salted butter at home! Can I scrape the salt and use salted butter?
Thanks!
These are the cookies that i want. not perfectly round and crumbly. are the pictures the actual result of the recipe? Your reply will be much appreciated. thank you!
Yes, of course the photos are of the recipe!
I just made these and have to testify to their crispy chewiness! Great recipe for a classic sweet treat!
These were great! I added some chopped pecans because the guy friend I was making these for is obsessed with pecans for some reason. They turned out fantastic! Really interesting flavor, the brown sugar really came through. Thanks for the recipe!
These are so delicious! I have a second batch brewin in the oven right now and I couldn’t help but perform some quality control on the first! I made them jumbo size (1/4 cup) and had to keep them in a touch over 17 minutes. They’re so delicious; more brown sugar and vanilla = YUM!
Thank you!
I just tried these cookies – my first go at a smittenkitchen recipe in fact, and they didn’t disappoint. I’m from England so wasn’t sure about the cup measurements but once I’d found an online converter, I was well on my way!
I halved the recipe and it still made me 20 decent sized cookies (though I must admit there are only 18 cooling now…) Just one issue – these bad boys aren’t spreaders. The shape I spooned them onto the sheet in was pretty much the shape I ended up with, so next time I would flatten them out a little more and I’m pretty sure they would be perfection!
deb deb deb… i have fallen in love with this website (i only discovered it 2 weeks ago) and have been spamming my friends with your amazing recipe posts.
i just made these….except: i dont have chocolate chip cookies, i prefer raw dough to real cookies often :-p, and…my oven is broken and so i can only broil things.
i have 2 cookies in the oven right now on low broil with little pieces of dark chocolate pomegranate something sprinkled on top (stolen from my roommate since i had no chocolate ::shhh:: ) and they got really brown on top so…i flipped them :) desperate times call for desperate measures, ay?
i was so happy to look in my oven a moment ago and see that the cookies were retaining puffiness- ive tried all 3 of alton brown’s recipes, the ghiradelli recipe, etc and i can never find one that turns out right or the way i want it to. yay!
I was on the hunt for, yet, another chocolate chip cookie recipe to try. Of the many, and believe me I’ve tried many, this one was the best! Cookies were just as described. I did add 1/2 cup chocolate chips because I was craving chocolate and they turned out fantastic. My picky boys agreed that these were the best!
This was my favorite cookie recipe before i went vegan, so today i tried my hand at veganizing it! This was done simply by replacing eggs with a flax seed mixture (flax meal+hot water=fake eggs), butter with earth balance, semisweet chocolate chips with vegan chocolate chips and white sugar with raw sugar! I liked the final result even better than the original! The flax seed “eggs” gave them a wonderful nutty flavor! Thanks for the recipe!
this photo makes me want to bake chocolate chip cookies now…been searching for the perfect recipe, will try this recipe that you recommended.
I’ve had a 100+ degree fever for the last two days, and for some reason, got the brilliant idea to bake chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night in between coughing fits. I’m crazy, I don’t know.
I was out of butter, so I swapped out Safeway brand Butterlicious spread (no, I’m not kidding). We were totally and completely out of baking soda, so I left it out. By the time I mixed the chocolate chips in (bittersweet, no semi-sweet to be found), I contemplated just throwing the whole mix in the trash.
But, alas, these were decent! Even with all of that! I figure if I can mess them up that badly and still have them be pretty mediocre, then this is a darn good recipe. I can’t wait to try this again with the actual ingredients…it’ll be a huge hit! Thanks for the recipe, Deb, this is (potentially) wonderful.
My husband found this recipe several months ago and he’s been making these cookies a few times a month. I think it’s the tastiest chocolate chip cookie we’ve made yet.
Officially my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. : )
I agree with Jaimie- I’m not a person who likes to bake much but WOW has been the response I get when people taste these cookies and they are so easy! I just found your website a few weeks ago and I must say I am very impressed and will continue to try your recipes! Thank you!
I had a problem with these for some reason :/ I noticed as soon as I added the butter how it seemed like way too much. There were puddles of grease in the corners of the bowl, and the cookies came out flat and greasy. I’m positive I added the right amount of the other ingredients, are you suire there’s supposed to be that much butter in these?
A++++++++++++++++++
Would make again.
This may have been asked already (I just didn’t have the patience to read ALL those comments), but which brown sugar did you use? light or dark? In my experience only using light makes for a cookie that is too blonde IMO and using all dark makes for a cookie that spreads too much and doesn’t maintain it’s thickness. Would a mix be fine?
I haven’t tasted them yet, but they’re coming out of the over pretty flat. They do look like they will be both crispy and chewy, but I was looking for a thicker cookie. They don’t look like your photo, Deb! What do you think of adding baking powder or subbing the powder for the soda?
This is the best recipe for choc chip cookies ever for a busy mom who never remembers to leave butter out to soften. Melted butter–brilliant! And I’ve made the cookies big and wee and they always come out perfect. Teachers at my daughter’s school request them for all special occasions, but I always give you credit, of course.