Just Another Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
— Cooking, Baking, Cookies — 4 min read
I always hate when people tell their life story before a recipe so this post will (hopefully) just get to the point.
Recipe
What you need
Ingredients
- 1 Cup of Softened Butter (225g)
- 1.5 Cups + 1 Tablespoon of White Granulated Sugar (315g)
- ~1.5 Teaspoons of Blackstrap Molasses (10-12g)
- ~2 Teaspoons of Vanilla (8-9g)
- ~1 Teaspoon of Fresh Lemon Juice (Quick Twist)
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda (4 grams)
- ~1.5 Teaspoons Kosher Salt (10g, I use Diamond Crystal)
- 3 Cups Bread Flour (360g!!!)
- 12-Ounce Bag of Semi-Sweet Chocoloate Chips (340g)
- ~1.5 Cups of Walnuts (190g)
- Pinch of Cinnamon
- Flaky Sea Salt to Taste (Maldon, bonus points for their Smoked Salt)
Tools
- Rubber Spatula
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Scale
- Plastic Wrap
- Baking Pan or Cookie Sheet
- Parchment Paper
What to do
Butter/Sugar Mixture
1) Mix the softened butter, sugar, and molasses together into a large mixing bowl and stir with a rubber spatula until all ingredients are mixed together.
You can use an electric mixer here but I can't fit all these appliances in my small Seattle apartment so I just mix by hand - it gives a great forearm workout as well!
¡Alternative Alert!
Brown half the butter (half cup) and use that with the rest of the softened butter (half cup). The browning provides some complex nutty flavors and although it's listed as an alternative, it is my go-to way of making cookies.
Wet Ingredients
2) Add in both eggs, the vanilla and lemon juice, and stir until even consistency.
Dry Ingredients
3) Add in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and 1.5 cups (~180g) of the flour and then mix.
Always measure your flour by weight before adding! (More on this later).
Mix until even consistency, but don't over mix here. Add in .5 cups (~60g) of flour and mix again. Repeat this process two more times until 3 cups of flour have been added and everything has been mixed.
The 'Stuffing'
4) Add in your chocolate chips and walnuts to the mix and stir.
The dough is ready!.... almost.
I've found that the best cookie comes when you plastic wrap it and refridgerate for atleast a day. If you're itching for some cookies, you can also wait for around an hour to allow the ingredients to get to know each other. After refridgerating, it's time to bake!
Baking
5) Roll the cookie dough into balls of about 3 oz or 80g. Make sure to use a scale to ensure even size so that baking is consistent.
I like to flatten the top of the balls a bit as well to get a better color, almost like a hockey puck shape
Place the balls/pucks onto some parchment paper and into a baking pan or cookie sheet.
There's two ways to bake these cookies that I approve of - low and slow or high and fast. You can decide how you like them and bake!
Low and Slow - Broil on High for ~100 seconds and then bake at 350°F for 17-18 minutes
- This method gives an even consistency throughout the cookie and in my experience does not rise as much
High and Fast - Broil on High for ~100 seconds and then bake at 375°F for 13-14 minutes
- This method gives a crisper exterior and chewier interior and seems to be a little taller
I personally like the High and Fast method, but opinions seem to split. Split your cookie dough in half and try out both ways!
Let Cool and Eat!
6) Let the cookies cool on a wire rack (or just on the pan they baked in, tbh it doesn't make that much of a difference) for atleast 10 minutes and sprinkle with some Maldon salt before enjoying.
Note: I've baked many batches of cookies to finally settle on this recipe, but one thing that was consistent in all cookies was that they peaked in taste 1-2 days after baking them, and they quickly declined after.
If you have the impulse control, try waiting a day before eating them!
And if you aren't making the cookies for a large amount of people (like if you're me and just baking for yourself to calm yourself in this lockdown) then make your cookies in smaller batches and refridgerate/freeze the rest.
Cookie dough can last about a week in the fridge and many months when frozen.
For Visual Learners
| Butter/Sugar/Molasses (Non-browned butter method) → Mixed Together |
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| After Wet Ingredients → After Dry Ingredients |
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| After Chocolate Chips/Walnuts → Mixed Together |
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| Bake! (pls use parchment I didn't have any here) |
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| Low and Slow | High and Fast |
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FAQ
Arvind, why so much butter!
Yes, I know, most recipes call for 1.5 sticks of butter, but butter allows the cookie to have a chewier center and most of all, it tastes great!
I've also found the added butter gives a denser cookie that is much more filling and serves as a great snack or dessert.
Why did you tell me to weigh the flour?
I finally got a scale to appease my new pour-over addiction, but it also helped me realize that I was doing flour extremely wrong in the past.
Flour is very finnicky to measure by volume, it can change with temperature and humidity levels - it's extremely difficult to accurately get the right amount of flour just from a measuring cup.
After switching to weighted measurements of flour, I realized that I was adding in about 20% more flour than I intended! Always measure your flour by weight!
A Twist of Lemon?
The acidity of the lemon combined with the base (baking soda) in the recipe causes carbon dioxide as a byproduct and in effect leavens the cookie to produce a more fluffy cookie... or so I'm told.
I don't see it in many recipes but I drew inspiration from the DoubleTree Recipe and it made the cookies a little better so I threw it in there.
Why are we broiling!
I'm a big fan of Adam Ragusea and a bigger fan of his method for chocolate chip cookies.
He explains it in depth, but the main reason is for the aesthetic appeal. It creates small darker patches on the top of the cookie and the heterogeneity creates one good-looking cookie!
Salt on sweets?
A little bit of salt makes sweet things sweeter. A finishing touch of Maldon on sweet baked goods is a classic way to enhance both the aesthetics and flavor of your creations.
This is a just an amalgamation of other recipes and not yours, you're a phony!
Aren't all recipes :)
Here are some inspirations I drew from: