Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe Tips

Use room temperature butter: Butter that is too cold won’t cream properly with the sugar, resulting in a dense cookie, while butter that is too warm or melted will make the dough too loose, causing the cookies to spread too much. The ideal butter consistency is soft but not greasy—when pressed, it should leave a slight indentation but still hold its shape. If you need to soften butter quickly, cut it into small cubes and let it sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes, or microwave it in 5-second intervals, rotating after each time to prevent melting.

Chill the dough if needed: If your kitchen is warm, or if you want extra thick cookies, it’s a good idea to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before baking. Chilling helps the flavors develop, firms up the dough, and prevents excessive spreading in the oven. If you prefer a cookie with crisp edges and a gooey center, you can bake right away. If you love a thicker, chewier texture, chill the dough and let it rest before baking.

Don’t over-bake: They should look slightly underdone in the center when you take them out of the oven. As they sit on the baking sheet, they will continue to set from the residual heat, creating that perfect gooey middle with a lightly crisp edge. If you wait until they look fully baked in the oven, they’ll likely end up overcooked and too firm once cooled. Removing them just 1-2 minutes early ensures they have that classic soft and chewy texture.

Use high-quality chocolate: Instead of just using chocolate chips, try a mix of semisweet and dark chocolate, or chop up a chocolate bar for those irresistible puddles of melted chocolate. High-quality chocolate melts more evenly and creates a rich, decadent flavor. If you like variety, you can also mix in some milk chocolate chunks or white chocolate for contrast.

Measure your flour correctly: Too much flour results in dense, cakey cookies, while too little flour makes them spread too thin. The best method is to spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level it off with a knife, rather than scooping directly from the bag, which compacts the flour and leads to excess. If you have a kitchen scale, using grams for accuracy (about 125g per cup of flour) is the most foolproof way to measure.

Room temperature or Refrigerator: Keeping cookies in an airtight container at room temperature ensures they stay fresh and soft for up to five days. If you like a firmer texture or want to extend their shelf life, store them in the fridge for up to a week. Chilling them will make them slightly denser, but a quick warm-up in the microwave can bring them back to a soft, gooey texture.

Freezer: For baked cookies, let them cool completely and store them in a freezer-safe bag for up to three months. When ready to eat, thaw at room temperature or warm in the oven at 300°F for a few minutes. For freezing cookie dough, scoop the dough into individual balls and freeze them on a baking sheet before transferring to a bag or container. This way, you can bake fresh cookies whenever you want. When baking frozen dough, simply add 2-3 extra minutes to the baking time without thawing first.