My Absolute Best Chocolate Chip Recipe!

If you’ve met me in person or at least read my about page, you know one of my favorite hobbies is baking, especially perfecting my best chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Cookies have always been a go-to in our two person household because it’s easy to halve the recipe or freeze the unbaked dough – which isn’t always so easy to do with something like a cake recipe! I’ve spent a good six to seven years working through various chocolate chip cookie recipes on Pinterest, and while I’m always game to try a new recipe, without a doubt this is the one recipe I come back to for any type of gathering where I need to whip up a quick dessert.

I could wax poetic about this particular recipe; in fact, I refer to it as “my semi-famous cookie dough.” It has never failed me, and when we lived out east working in volunteer construction, this was always a hit at our weekend get togethers – I always had fun teaching 19 year old boys how to bake cookies for the very first time!

Before you scroll down for the recipe below, I implore you to read my tips for your best chocolate chip cookies ever:

1. While it’s always difficult to wait for your cookie dough to chill in the refrigerator, it ensures that the cookies are not too gooey and spreading out while they bake. Give the dough at least an hour in the fridge to set.
2. Don’t use imitation vanilla extract. Seriously. Treat yo’self and buy the pure vanilla extract – and if you really want to take your cookies to the next level buy Mexican vanilla. This will give your cookies an extra depth and richness that cheap imitation extract can never match.
3. There no comparison between melted butter and room temperature butter. Do not – I repeat – do not melt butter for this recipe. If you’re in a rush and can’t leave your butter on the counter for an hour or two, check out butter hack #1 on this post.
4. DO NOT overmix. You are not making bread, there is no reason to beat this batter until it cries uncle. Step away from your fancy mint green KitchenAid mixer and give your batter some love with a little bit of elbow grease for the best results – this will keep your cookies light and fluffy instead of overly dense and heavy.
5. Bake one tray at a time. This is also mentioned in the recipe below – cookie baking is an art. Slow down and enjoy the process and don’t rush it. Bake a tray, pull it out, and remove cookies from the tray to cool. Baking one tray of cookies at a time ensures they all bake evenly, instead of half overbaked and half underbaked.

Whenever we go downstate to visit family I end up making batches of cookie dough and stashing in my parents and in-laws freezers so they have something to remind them of me after we head home. This spring we, of course, have not been traveling anywhere, so I recently made up some mason jars full of the basic mix to mail back to remind my parents I was thinking of them. When they go to bake, they just need to add the butter, vanilla, and eggs!

Veronica’s Absolute Favorite Semi-Famous Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe!

(source)

• 2 ¹/₈ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ¹/₂ cups regular semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup large bittersweet or dark chocolate chips
• 1 ¹/₂ cups walnuts, finely chopped
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup light or dark brown sugar, tightly packed
• ¹/₂ cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F.
2. Sift flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugars until well mixed and light. Scrape down the sides. Add one egg. Mix for 5 seconds. Scrape down the sides. Add second egg. Mix for 5 seconds. Scrape down the sides. Add vanilla. Mix for 5 seconds. Scrape down the sides.
4. You’re going to add the sifted flour mixture in 4 batches, stopping before adding the final batch. For the first 3 batches, mix just to combine, scraping down the sides between each addition. When you get to the final batch of flour, add the chocolate chip/nut mixture. They will get a bit crushed. That’s okay. Mix until there’s barely a trace of flour visible. Don’t over-mix. (See rant above).
5. Set up a sheet pan with a silpat, aluminum foil, or parchment paper. Bake one tray at a time or they will all cook at different rates. Make them spherical, not flat. The cookie size is up to you. I find the bigger they are, the better ratio you have between gooey interior and crisp exterior. 2 ounces is about right for that.
6. Leave a few inches between the raw cookies. Place sheet pan in the oven. They cook very fast at this temp. I never set a timer. I just hang around the oven and drink tea. They’re done when they’re brown and crispy on the outer border and raw in the very middle (8 to 10 minutes). Remove sheet pan. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then, with a spatula, transfer cookies to a cookie rack to cool. If you’re not going to eat them right away, they should be frozen.
7. If you’re not baking them off right away, portion them out with an ice cream scoop, place them on a sheet pan, and freeze. Once firm, store them in a Ziploc bag. If baking later, no need to thaw dough before baking.

Did you try my recipe? Let me know how they turned out for you below!