Our Favorite Classic & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

It’s finally here - holiday baking season! And we’re back with another cookie recipe. You can’t go wrong with homemade chocolate chip cookies and they’re our go-to when friends are coming over. This year, we’ll be baking and boxing them up for super cute neighborhood gifts.

// Wayfair Black Friday Sale: Many of the items seen in our kitchen can be found on Wayfair and the links included are affiliate. Wayfair’s Black Friday event is going on NOW! Everything is up to 80% off with free shipping! We are lucky enough to be partnering with them and while this is a sponsored post, the content and opinions are both organic and our own.

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Stephen is the baker in this house and he’s tweaked this recipe to fit our taste. You may remember when we partnered with America’s Test Kitchen (we love them!) and baked some of our favorite ATK recipes. For this recipe, we took what we love about their Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe - the brown butter & the mixing method - and what we love about their Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe - the puffier texture and the break and flip method - to make the world’s best cookie (well, in our opinion). Ultimately, in Stephen’s test kitchen, we used slightly fewer chocolate chips, half the salt, and added a little more flour for some umph (and nice chewy centers).

Of course it’s important to set the scene - you can’t bake holiday cookies without the music to go with it. This is the playlist you’ll find us baking to!

Ingredients & Equipment

2 Cups (10 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
14 (10+4) tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1 teaspoon table salt (reduce if like us, you prefer a less salty cookie)
½ cup (3 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
¾ cups (5 1/4 oz) packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 ½ cups (9 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 baking sheets
Medium bowl
Large bowl
Small mixing bowl (microwavable)
Whisk
Spatula
Electric Mixer
// Note: Stephen prefers to do his baking according to a kitchen scale as opposed to a measuring cup. We've included both conversions in the instructions below.

Instructions

Adjust your oven rack to the middle and heat to 325 degrees. Then, line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Next, combine the dry ingredients. Whisk flour (2 cups/10oz) and baking soda (1/2 tsp) together in medium bowl; set aside.
Heat 10 TBSP of butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Continue cooking, stirring constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma - this will take about 1 to 3 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and transfer the brown butter to large heatproof bowl, or directly into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix the remaining 4 TBSP of butter into the hot, melted butter until it’s all completely combined.
Add both sugars (white sugar: 1/2 cup or 3.5 oz, dark brown sugar: 3/4 cup or 5.25 oz) salt (1/2 - 1 tsp based on preference), and vanilla extract (2 tsp) to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add whole egg (1) and yolk (1) then whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining.
Ok, are you ready for the secret sauce? You’re going to let the mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth and shiny.
Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined, about 1 minute, wiping down the sides of the bowl. Fold in the semi-sweet chocolate chips (1.5 cups or 9oz) and give the dough a final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
Divide dough into roughly 16 balls of dough (about 3 tablespoons each or a #24 cookie scoop). Take the ball and pull it apart into two pieces before recombining them with the rough edges up (* See the note and gif in the carousel below).
Arrange the cookie dough balls 2 inches apart on your prepared baking sheet. You’ll probably fit about 8 dough balls per sheet. If there's extra, we're not saying to eat the raw chocolate chip cookie dough, but we're not not saying it either...
Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, about 16 minutes, rotating the sheet pan halfway through baking. Remember every oven is different so you may need to adjust your baking time, adding or subtracting an extra minute. Transfer the baked cookies to a wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.
// Note: We find that the pull apart and combine method gives the best results because of the peaks it creates in the cookie dough. The final product is a puffier cookie with a chewy texture and crisp edges. What could be better? Trust us, it's worth it.