Bakery Style Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Steve_G's Note:

I know... Not ANOTHER chocolate chip cookie recipe... BUT, you'll find that these are sheer perfection, large bakery-style, thick and chewy, cookies that taste as good as they look with a fool-proof set of instructions. It was pointed out to me that this recipe is from Baking Illustrated, perhaps so as I wrote down the ingredients from a morning show years ago! Thanks for letting me know.

• Total Time: 28 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 18 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 18

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (280 gms)
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (20 gms)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm (170 gms)
• 1 cup brown sugar (packed, light or dark, 236 gms)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk, from a large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, milk chocolate or any combination, 300 gms)
• 1 cup walnuts (114 gms, chopped) (optional)

Directions:

1. A couple of tips from helpful reviewers.
2. The dough is meant to be on the dry side so it can be rolled, not dropped.
3. If you're not getting a good flavor, try using a higher quality vanilla and/or chocolate chips. (Penzey's Madagascar Vanilla, Ghirardelli chips, fresh/real butter).
4. Check your oven temperature, cooking time and temperature is critical. If the cookies are not chewy they are probably overcooked.
5. Bread flour will make the cookies even more chewy, biscuit flour will make them less chewy.
6. Do not let your dough get warm, I like to scoop it on to pans and refrigerate before I pop them in the oven.
7. Pan color is very important, if they are too dark you may experience some crisp edges, try using some parchment and lowering the cooking temperature a bit.
8. Place oven racks in the upper and lower 1/3's of the oven.
9. Preheat oven to 325°F.
10. Cover 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper Mix flour, baking powder & salt in a bowl or bag and set aside.
11. Mix butter and sugars with with a mixer until blended and smooth, add egg, yolk & vanilla.
12. Mix until incorporated.
13. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
14. Stir in chips and optional nuts.
15. Divide into 18 equal balls, a 2" cookie scoop works just about perfectly, about 60 gms each.
16. EVENLY space 9 on each cookie sheet.
17. Bake for 12-18 minutes, rotating front to back and top to bottom after 8 minutes.
18. Cool on sheets to maintain chewy texture.

Reviews

[JungleLove]

I've been making this recipe for over a year now, and I'm definitely known for making the best cookies around! All thanks to Steve_G! I always use half ww pastry flour and omit the extra 2 tablespoons of flour (don't seem to need it)... Often, I make the dough and freeze it to use as I need... too much dough for a house of 2. I pop the frozen dough right into the oven and it usually takes about 20 minutes to bake at 330....... BEST COOKIES EVER!!! Update: I was out of brown sugar, so I made my own using 1 C. white sugar plus 4T molasses. These were the BEST BATCH YET! The homemade brown sugar ended up being very dark, similar to a muscovado brown sugar. It added that mysterious rich, caramel-y, deep flavor! SO GOOD. I also used 1 teaspoon of brewed coffee and 1 teaspoon vanilla (instead of 2 vanilla) didn't notice the flavor, but like I said, they were the best I've ever made!

[Chef #512452]

I'm not a great chef by any stretch of the imagination. I heavily rely on recipes to help me make edible food... And this recipe is more than simply "edible"! :) I was searching for a cookie recipe that did not require baking soda, and I stumbled upon this one. I had already purchased salted butter sticks... so I used them instead of the unsalted butter. I also reduced the chocolate chips to one cup and I used a combination of white chocolate chips and semi-sweet milk chocolate ones. Oh yeah... I was measuring the vanilla over the butter/sugar mixture and spilled extra in there... so these cookies had an extra blessing of vanilla flavor....

Since I'm not a baker extraordinaire, I don't have any parchment paper or fancy schmancy baking equipment/tools. I just covered a regular dark pan with some cheap-o Reynolds foil and sprayed it with olive oil. I didn't leave the dough in the fridge long... only about 20 minutes or so... but that was enough time for it to firm up a bit. I rolled the dough into balls, and then pressed them down a bit so they'd be just slightly flat. (I read that tip somewhere. I don't know how effective it is.) Anywho, I baked each batch for about 16 minutes... and whoa! Those cookies were scrumptious! They were slightly slightly crunchy on the outside (I don't mind that so much) and nice and chewy on the inside. I look forward to experimenting with this recipe by adding other super fun ingredients, like toffee bar pieces, butterscotch and peanut butter morsels. Simply put, these cookies rocked my socks!

[Chef Shannon N.]

Love, Love, Love ! I picked this recipe because I didn't have any shortening which the other recipes call for. Very good cookie. I know I messed it up because the dough was supposed to be on the dry side and mine wasn't but they still taste great. Thanks for sharing this one ! Update: The cookies came out even better the second time around. Last time I cut the recipe in half and that's when the dough wasn't dry enough. This time I went ahead and did the regular recipe and they came out perfect. I let the dough sit in the fridge for about 20 mins before baking. Great looking cookie as well.