Gemma’s Greatest Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe (With Video)

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Hello Daring Bakers!

I’ve been a pastry chef for years, so I do know a factor or two about cookies (simply take a look at the 100+ cookie recipes right here) That’s why I’m so excited to share with you make my Greatest-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies. Transfer over Toll Home and Mrs. Fields, the Larger Bolder King of all Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes is right here, and it’s the one recipe you’ll ever want! Simply try the hundreds of feedback and five-star opinions:

“By far the very best cookie recipe I’ve used. They’ve a beautiful taste, crispy edges, and a tender chewy center. The pockets of melted chocolate are heaven. I’ll by no means use one other recipe.”–Cherie

“They got here out completely. I concur 100%, that is the all-time cookie recipe.” –Newbie Baker

“I’ve tried A LOT of various cookie recipes through the years, however these cookies are simply…WOW.” –Lidi

Comply with my tried and true recipe and my Daring Baking Ideas under, and I’ll present you make buttery chocolate chip cookies even higher than those you like out of your favourite bakery or restaurant.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This recipe was up to date and improved on 4/25/2023, to incorporate further step-by-step pictures, science behind components and the method, solutions to essentially the most incessantly requested questions (why flat/why puffy/why oily), and perfected Professional-Chef Ideas (chocolate varieties, baking from chilly, “pan bang magic”, and so forth.). 

Desk of Contents

What’s a Chocolate Chip Cookie?

The unique recipe, referred to as the Toll Home Chocolate Crunch Cookie, was invented in 1939 by cooks Ruth Graves Wakefield and Sue Brides. Wakefield owned the Toll Home Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, and used Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate for the historic recipe.

The Secrets and techniques to My Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

This Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe has the magic ratio of brown to white sugar. Whereas this looks like a small element it makes an enormous distinction within the texture of the cookie. Learn under about how brown sugar and white sugar mix to make the best mixture of crisp and chewy.

I don’t imagine in skimping on key components, so the Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie has severe chocolate chunkage. Regular cookie recipes are 80% cookie dough to twenty% chocolate chips, comparatively, the Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie has a 50-50 ratio. I like to make use of bittersweet chocolate with 72% cocoa solids, and I take advantage of a chopped-up bar of high quality chocolate.

The Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie dough is chilled earlier than baking as a way to give the dough a greater texture and to meld the flavors.

Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies Components

Dry Components

• Flour: All-purpose flour (AKA plain flour) is the bottom of those cookies. It has a protein content material of round 11%, so the cookies will probably be tender.
• Salt: A pinch of salt will improve your cookies’ taste by balancing out the sweetness.
• Baking Soda provides you a chewy cookie with a gooey, doughier middle (utilizing baking powder would provide you with a cakey cookie).
  • Baking soda reacts with the small quantity of pure acid from eggs to frivolously leaven the cookies.
  • Baking soda reacts with scorching sugar contributing to the flavour and browning of cookies.
  • Baking soda delays the setting course of permitting cookies to unfold extra correctly.  Discover the science behind these on this article Baking Powder VS. Baking Soda When Baking Cookies.

• Each white sugar and brown sugar sweeten cookies, bind simply with water to lock in moisture moistening cookies and inhibiting extra gluten formation and contribute to browning and flavors.
  • Granulated Sugar (AKA: White Sugar/Caster Sugar) is the principle sweetener. With much less moisture than brown sugar, white sugar caramelizes sooner and provides the cookies delicately crispy edges.
  • Comparatively, Brown Sugar provides moisture to offer cookies a gooey chewy middle and a beautiful trace of caramel. I like to recommend darkish brown sugar which has extra moisture and a deeper caramel taste than mild brown sugar. Make your personal or enrich it utilizing my recipe Methods to Make Brown Sugar.

Moist Components

• Butter incorporates round 80% milk fats which provides richness to cookies. Salted butter provides further taste and is what I all the time use, however unsalted butter works too.
• Eggs:
  • Eggs all the time should be at room temperature in baking except specified in any other case.
  • Eggs enrich flavors.
  • The yolks act as an emulsifier to bind all components homogeneously, and the egg whites assist make the cookies tender.

• Vanilla extract works as a seasoning to convey out the flavour of the opposite components and particularly pairs very well with bittersweet chocolate. Make your personal utilizing my Do-it-yourself Extract recipe.
• Bittersweet Chocolate:
  • Bittersweet chocolate (63 – 72 % cocoa solids) is darker and extra pronounced than semisweet chocolate and has the right stability of bitter and candy. Therefore, that is my go-to chocolate.
  • Discover out extra about chocolate right here in my Final Information to the Totally different Forms of Chocolate.

How To Make Chocolate Chip Cookies

Making the Dough

1. MyDaring Baking Primary of whisking dry components and moist components individually first earlier than combining is the important thing to the success of this recipe and plenty of others!
   • Separate mixings incorporate further air to lighten cookie dough in comparison with whisking every little thing collectively .
   • Whisking dry components and moist components individually not solely evenly disperses components with out toughening gluten but in addition helps to stop dense rubbery cookies.
2. Use melted butter as a substitute of softened butter. Softened butter retains far more air than melted butter which is able to make cookies rise like desserts. We’re in search of a beautiful chewy, gooey cookie right here, not a cake-like cookie.
3. Add the eggs separately.
   • Introducing eggs slowly will permit emulsifiers from egg yolks satisfactory time to convey all components collectively homogeneously and remove lumps with out over mixing.
   • Including one egg every time additionally cools down the very heat butter and sugar combination to stop eggs from getting cooked too early.

Chilling the Dough

4. CHILL COOKIE DOUGH! I can’t stress sufficient how necessary and the way useful it’s to sit back the cookie dough.

• • Chilling cookie dough permits time for moist components to hydrate dry components, concentrating and enhancing taste.
  • Chilling cookie dough prevents overspreading. On one hand, the cooled solidified fats takes an extended time to soften and make the cookies unfold. However, sugar has time to soak up extra extra moisture from the dough to cease the cookies from overspreading.
  • Moreover, chilling cookie dough barely dries out the dough making sugar caramelize extra simply, resulting in a crispy-on-the-outside and chewy-on-the-inside texture.

Baking

5. Take care NOT to overbake the cookies. Bake cookies JUST till the sides are set and the cookies start to show darker or golden brown however are nonetheless doughy and a bit pale within the center. They could seem uncooked however will set extra whereas cooling.

Why Are My Cookies Too Flat? Methods to keep away from cookies unfold?

1. First, flours don’t soak up liquid equally. Use as much as 3/4 in a single go and modify it accordingly to achieve the identical consistency because the recipe.
2. Second, DO NOT over-mix. Be certain that all components are at room temperature. Combine components till JUST mixed. Over-mixing will separate fats from butter inflicting the cookie unfold out throughout baking.
3. Third, Chilling cookie dough not solely enhances flavors but in addition stabilizes dough to stop cookies from spreading too skinny.
4. Fourth, Preheat your oven. The second you place your cookies in, they begin to rise. Think about melting chocolate on the stovetop on low warmth. Whenever you’re baking cookies, you wouldn’t desire a scenario the place low oven warmth is inflicting your cool cookie dough to soften slowly.
5. Finally, one other downside might be that you just flattened the cookie dough out on the cookie sheet earlier than baking. Don’t flatten these cookies! They’ll flatten out themselves within the oven.

Why Are My Cookies Too Puffy? Methods to make cookies unfold out correctly?

1. First, your dough might need been on the dry aspect. Flour in other places behaves in numerous methods and absorbs liquid in a different way. It’s possible you’ll want extra for yours to get the identical consistency because the recipe.
2. Second, you might need over dealt with the dough. This strengthens gluten and prevents cookies from spreading. Be certain that all components are at room temperature and blend till simply mixed.
3. Third, in case your oven runs scorching, the surface of the cookies might bake too so that they don’t unfold as they need to.
4. Final however not least, I DO suggest chilling your cookie dough within the fridge or freezer. Nonetheless, baking from frozen will have an effect on the feel. Let frozen cookie dough sit at room temperature for 10 to fifteen minutes whereas preheating the oven, then bake the cookies till the sides are set and the cookie is starting to show darker or golden brown all through. Be certain it’s nonetheless doughy and a bit pale within the center. They’ll set extra whereas cooling down.

FAQs

Can I Make Chocolate Chip Cookies in Advance?

Sure. You can also make chocolate chip cookies prematurely.  So long as you cowl the bowl of dough with cling wrap, and it’ll hold simply nice within the fridge for as much as 7 days. You may as well freeze pre-scooped balls of dough for as much as 8 weeks.

Methods to Retailer the Cookies

You possibly can retailer the cookies at room temperature in an hermetic container for as much as 2 days.

Can I Make the Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies Egg-Free?

Sure. You possibly can all the time use my egg substitute chart and nonetheless get pleasure from fabulous cookies.

[ Vegan? Try my Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe! ]

Why did my cookies come out oily?

The key to getting a cookie that’s crisp on the sides however chewy within the center is to bake a really chilly or frozen dough in a very scorching oven. You possibly can type the dough into balls earlier than freezing. Then simply place them on a cookie sheet and bake them in a preheated oven. Preserve this in thoughts: chilly dough, scorching oven. Additionally don’t overmix, as that may separate the butter, providing you with a greasy cookie in consequence.

Gemma’s Professional Chef Ideas for the Greatest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

1. Use a chopped-up bar of high quality bittersweet chocolate. Chocolate chips include stabilizers they usually gained’t soften and pool like chopped-up chocolate. Additionally, the standard of chocolate in chips is typically not so good as what you’ll discover in a bar.
2. Bear in mind to sit back your cookie dough. Chilling dough not solely refines taste and texture but in addition ensures much less unfold throughout baking.
   • On one hand, chilling the dough for no less than one hour will forestall your cookies from over spreading throughout baking.
   • However,  “growing old” your dough in a single day or as much as seven days provides your dough a extra pronounced taste and gooier texture.
3. Scoop 1/4 cup of dough per cookie as directed in my recipe. The baking time is predicated on a 1/4 scoop of cookie dough. If you happen to make the scoops are smaller then it’s good to bake them for much less time. Correspondingly, you’ll get greater than the recipe’s yield of 14-15 cookies.
4. One other key level is to ensure you don’t FLATTEN the cookies. Form spherical balls of dough, pop them within the fridge to ensure they’re chilly earlier than baking, after which place them on the cookie sheet. They’ll flatten out within the oven, providing you with a thick cookie with a gooey middle.
5. Bake cookies from COLD at a excessive temperature for a short while. It will guarantee you have got crisp edges and a gooey, doughy middle.
6. Final, bang the pan! The simple trick of banging the pan just a few instances after baking, causes the cookies to “fall,” and produces a cookie coated in pretty crinkles on the floor and swimming pools of melted chocolate.

This recipe is the very best of all worlds, however should you’re a fan of chewy chocolate chip cookies, tender chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate chunkage, I’ve what you’re in search of:

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IMPORTANT NOTE: This recipe was up to date and improved on 4/25/2023, to incorporate further step-by-step pictures, science behind components and the method, solutions to essentially the most incessantly requested questions (why flat/why puffy/why oily), and perfected Professional-Chef Ideas (chocolate varieties, baking from chilly, “pan bang magic”, and so forth.). 

Full (and printable) recipe under!