The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Everyone needs a perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. They’re great for welcoming a neighbor, sending to a bake sale, or just a cozy weekend at home. Cookies are always a good idea (single servings! travel well! not messy!), and chocolate chip cookies are the king of them all.
In my pursuit of perfected recipes I’d like to hand down to my grandkids, I’ve been working on this one for awhile. Everyone has their own idea of a perfect chocolate chip cookie; mine is one that’s chewy, bakery-size, and cooked until just golden (though I always err on the side of under-baked). I prefer dark chocolate, which is a little less sweet, and chunks over chips, because I want to bite into pockets of chocolate.
But what really tips this recipe over into perfection is that I’ve figured out how to make this recipe in one bowl with just a spoon (or fork) for mixing.
The key to one-bowl baking recipes is to understand why you normally need two bowls: to make sure you evenly distribute the rising agent (in this recipe it’s baking soda). But here we mix the baking soda directly into the puddle of butter and brown sugar to ensure it’s evenly distributed before we add the flour. This method hasn’t failed me yet. (I also used it to make my chai sugar cookies one-bowl)
And the secret to just a spoon for mixing? We melt the butter instead of creaming it with the sugar. You’d think it would compromise the texture of the cookie, but it doesn’t.
There you have it: one bowl, and no mixers to clean. You can be eating these in less than an hour and have hardly any dishes to do. Let’s get to it!
Chocolate Chip Cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter
1 ½ cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (do not pack)
12 oz of dark chocolate chunks
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375º F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Melt butter in the microwave. Add brown sugar to a large bowl and pour the butter over it. Stir to combine. Let stand 5 minutes to allow butter to cool a little bit.
Add eggs and mix lightly. Stir in vanilla extract, baking soda, and salt. Mix thoroughly.
Add flour, and mix until just combined. Mix in chocolate chunks.
Drop cookies onto a baking sheet. For bakery-size, use about 2 Tablespoons of dough.
Bake for 11-14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.
NOTES:
For the flour: scoop into your measuring cup and do not pack. If you’re a pretty comfortable baker, don’t worry about getting the ½ cup and ¼ cup measuring cups out - just eyeball using your 1 cup measuring cup (which may have markings on the inside to help).
If you can’t find dark chocolate chunks, a dark chocolate candy bar of roughly the same weight will work. Candy bars have the benefit of never quite firming up once they’ve melted, so you’ll find that your cookies will have soft puddles of chocolate even after they’ve cooled.
