The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
How to make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. These are hands down the most perfect chocolate chip cookies!
This has been a recipe I have been tweaking for months and months! You know how serious I take my cookie recipes. The cookie recipes I post need to be absolute perfection! If you have been following Modern Honey, you know how much I LOVE chocolate chip cookies. It has been my favorite thing to whip up in the kitchen since about 1979.
Since my Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies are the most popular cookie recipe on Modern Honey, I wanted to experiment with the recipe a little. Since Levain Bakery cookies are huge, I wanted to try making them smaller, reducing the baking temperature, adding vanilla, and a tad less flour. The result was the BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe EVER!
This chocolate chip cookie has a perfectly chewy center and crispy edges. You can make them in any size but I usually make them between 3-4 ounces.
I made the chocolate chip cookie dough and then experimented with different oven temperatures. I tried 385 degrees, 395 degrees, 400 degrees, 410 degrees, and even 425 degrees in a quest to find the ultimate baking temperature for these chocolate chip cookies. The winner was 400 degrees! It allowed the cookies to get those crispy edges while keeping the middle a perfect texture.
I also experimented with chilling the cookie dough. If you've read my posts about chilling cookie dough, you will find that I believe it is a pretty important step. When you chill cookie dough, something pretty spectacular happens and it just gets better with time. The flavors meld together, the dry ingredients absorb the butter and sugar, and the cookies become richer and more decadent. So if time is on your side, chill the dough for at least 24 hours!
How to make the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies:
- Start with cold butter, cut into cubes. If you want thicker cookies and less spreading, use cold cubed butter. You can also take the butter out of the refrigerator, place it in a microwave-safe bowl and put it in the microwave for about 5-8 seconds. It needs to be firm enough to cut into cubes but just soft enough to mix well with the sugars.
- Cream the butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes until light and fluffy. This helps to create a creamy texture and to wrap the butter around the sugar. It also whips air into the cookie dough which gives the cookies some extra rise.
- Add eggs and vanilla and beat until creamy.
- A secret leavening ingredient is to use BOTH cornstarch and baking soda. The cornstarch gives the cookies such a tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture. It's one of my favorite ingredients to add to cookies!
- Bring on the chocolate chips. I love to make my cookies extra chocolatey so I add some extra chocolate chips. Use your favorite type of chocolate chips -- semi-sweet, milk chocolate, or a mix of both. I also love to chop up a high-quality chocolate bar since it melts so beautifully. My favorite chocolate chips brands are Guittard and Ghirardelli.
Here are my favorite baking tools that I can't live without:
Light-Colored Baking Sheets
Parchment Paper Liners
Silpat Silicone Baking Sheets
Cookie Scoop
KitchenAid Mixer
If you love chocolate chip cookies, here are some of the most popular recipes:
- Levain Bakery Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies
- MJ's Top Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Charmina's Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
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The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Cold Butter (cut into cubes, if you want a slightly thinner cookie...microwave for about 5-8 seconds)
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons Sugar
- 2 large Eggs
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- 2 ¾ cups Flour (may use all-purpose or 1 cup cake flour and 1 ¾ cups of all-purpose flour)
- 1 teaspoon Cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ¾ teaspoon Salt
- 2 - 2 ½ cups Chocolate Chips (semi-sweet or mix of milk chocolate and semi-sweet)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees (if not chilling the dough). Check your oven temperature using an oven thermometer since some ovens run hot. If you suspect your oven runs hot, preheat oven to 385 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs and vanilla. Mix for 1 minute longer.
- Stir in flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
- If time permits, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 24 hours. If not, scoop cookie dough onto baking sheets. I suggest using parchment paper or Silpat silicone baking sheets on light-colored baking sheets. If you using dark colored baking sheets, the bottoms of the cookies may brown quickly and can burn. I suggest using light-colored cookie sheets.
- Bake for 8-11 minutes or until the edges just begin to turn a light golden color. Remove from oven and let set for 5 minutes before removing from the cookie sheet.
Video
Notes
I hope you love these perfect chocolate chip cookies! Thank you for following along!
Daniel
The taste of these cookies were great. However, when I used the recipe they ended up uncooked on the inside. 7 more minutes at 350 degrees seemed to do the trick for these ones.
Barry C
Hello, I love modern honey choc chip cookie recipe with the cornstarch, superb, My wife passed away last year and got into baking, primarily cookies, and give most away, LOL dont want to gain weight. it is fun though.
I have learned that to really get good at cookies, one must study the scientific part about the ingredients, makes life simpler if understanding what each ingredient is doing, instead of throwing stuff together and hoping.
anyway I made the modern honey, levain bakery dark choc chip cookie, is really good, but not a wow factor like everyone says. I wonder why they leave out vanilla extract in recipe, unless they think will make it to sweet.
I am just curious. Have you tried it with vanilla extract? I use the best ingredients also, dont skimp on ingredients.
thanks for help, I find that between modern honey and another gal name of tara teaspoon, these are my go to recipes for choc chip cookies
Delia
I saw vanilla on the recipe above
Mike
Is it unsalted or salted butter?
JOSEPH CAREY
All baking recipes imply unsalted butter unless explicitly stated to use salted butter.
Donna Gasquet
Cannot WAIT to try out this recipe gem....Question:...Light Brown or Dark Brown Sugar?...In France we also have a somewhat 'raw'..less compact-able sugar called 'Cassonade'....Do you suggest any particular variant?! Much continued respect and awe.
Em S.
Don’t use Cassonade! I’ve made that mistake in France many times. It’s too dry- won’t work. You need brown sugar which has molasses in it, so it’s a bit more moist and makes for a chewier cookie. Also in France you may need to add a big more flour and a tad less butter to make up for the much higher fat content of French butter. Try a few extra tablespoons of flour to start.
Rebecca Watson
What size cookie scoop should I use?
Jay
Loved the recipe. I did dark brown sugar for 100% of the sugar content ( no white sugar) and they were great!
JOSEPH CAREY
All baking recipes imply light brown sugar unless explicitly stated to use dark brown sugar.
Emina
My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe! I make it every so often but I cut it in half every time. Most recently I put in a little too much flour and had to add some milk to thin it out and loved the result, will be adding a splash o fmilk from here on out. I don't chill the dough FWIW
Carla
I’ve tried several different cookie recipes. This is by far THE BEST! I’ve used this recipe several times making cookies for my family, their friends and i once brought them to work( I work with mostly men)
Since then they all call me mama. Because I take care of them. I’m also requested to make them all the time. My daughter comes home from college with friends and that’s the only thing they request.
This is my keeper. Thank You ????
Darcey
This is absolutely ???? the best Chocolate Chip Cookie I've ever made. Soooooo good.
Pam Hurst
Absolutely delightful! Perfectly crispy on the outer and moist and chewy on the inner. I used mini semisweet chocolate chips and folded into half the dough, some toasted pecans because I love nuts in mine!! This recipe even beats Land o lakes recipe that I have used for years!!
Patti
This is literally the best cookie recipe ever! The perfect cookie. Little "crunch" on the outside, chewy cakey, on the inside, rich, buttery, sweet but not too sweet---- the quintessential perfect cookie.
Sarah
My go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. You can't go wrong with any of Melissa's choc chips recipes, but this is a classic that is always a hit.
Marifer J
Amazing cookies, thank you for all the recipes you share!
Question: can I replace some flour with cocoa powder to get a double chocolate Chip cookie?… if so, what would be the measure?
Love from Guadalajara, Mexico ????
storm
i've done this and it works great. i used chocolate chips and dried cherries in mine too!
Steph
I wish I could give these cookies a million stars. They are amazing!! Best I have ever made. I did use the 1 C. Cake flour with all purpose flour. I think that is one of the keys to them turning out so fantastic. Also when baking you can easily over bake these as most chocolate chip cookies you look for a little brown on top, but with these you don't want that.
Nancy
These are fantastic, but either my new oven runs really hot or the temperature on these is not right? I burnt the first batch, even though I followed the recipe and instructions to the letter. Should I adjust the heat and if so, to what? Hate to waste a batch of batter just experimenting with the oven temps. Thanks!
Teresa
Your instructions say to bake at 400 "if you don't chill the dough". What temp do you cook them at if you do chill the dough and for how long?
Kelsey
Same instructions, you just don't heat the oven until you're ready to bake, versus at the beginning of the mixing process.
Rhonda
Over the past 2 years, I have been trying to find a good chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I had all but given up. I decided to try one more time because I was making cookies for my granddaughter’s elementary basketball party and for my other granddaughter’s college basketball team for after their game and felt I needed to have chocolate chip cookies as a choice. All I can say is WOW! I loved them and they were a big hit! I saved a few for us just to see how they were on day 2 and they were just as good as day 1. That has been the problem with all of the chocolate chip cookie recipes I tried, day 2 they would be hard and stale. Not these, they were still soft and yummy! Only thing I did differently was I added 1 3/4 cup of chocolate chips instead of the 2 - 2 1/2 cups as suggested, but that is just my granddaughter’s personal preference. I can now say that I have found my go to Chocolate Chip cookie recipe! I highly recommend this recipe! Note: I also made Modern Honey’s The Best Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe for the girl’s teams and they were an even bigger hit!
Florentina
These were really delicious! I didn't even let the dough chill because I couldn't wait but still, they were so good.
The only little problem I had, was that they turned out a bit too crispy on the outside, but I guess it has got to do with the fact, that I baked them for 1 min too long.
Gigi
Can the dough be frozen for later use?
Deanna
Definitely one of my new favorite recipes! Do you think it would work to make a peanut butter version by just adding PB to this recipe, or would you think it ma dry them out?