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
- ¾ cup 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 to 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!
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!
Nour
Could I use salted butter?
Modern Honey
You can absolutely use salted butter. If you want, you can reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon. I love a little salty and sweet combination and the salt brings out the chocolate flavor. I hope you love these chocolate chip cookies!
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?
Modern Honey
Absolutely! You can roll the cookie dough into balls and then freeze or you can tightly wrap the entire cookie dough in plastic wrap and then place in a freezer bag and it can last for months in the freezer.
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?
Modern Honey
I think it would taste amazing! Since peanut butter is full of fat, it will definitely change the cookie. I can recipe test and make a chocolate peanut butter cookie. I do have a recipe here -- https://www.modernhoney.com/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/ I hope you love these cookies!
Jillien
This is the most perfect chocolate cookie recipe! 9 minutes at 400 was the sweet spot for incredibly gooey, yet crispy cookies.
Thank you!
Modern Honey
You are exactly right -- I think that is the perfect amount of time a gooey cookie with slightly crisp edges. Thank you so much for trying my recipe!
CJG
I just baked these cookies this evening after making them at least three times before. I believe the gas oven I had in making the previous batches helped with the flavor of the cookies, possibly. This time, I chilled the dough for six days (!) in the fridge (as I tend to do), let it come to room temperature, and then baked the cookies like above. They ended up tasting a little doughy and like they had too little sugar. The other times, this recipe turned out flavorful, and I had no issues with texture or flavor. Either way, this recipe is very good, and I might play around with the recipe in an electric oven. Thanks for it!
Modern Honey
Thank you so much for trying out my chocolate chip cookie recipe so many times. I am a huge fan of chilling the dough! I found the sweet spot of chilling is about 48 - 72 hours. I usually do 48 hours so you still get a lot of the flavor but the dough isn't as crumbly.
Jenzie
Thank goodness I finally found a chocolate chip cookie recipe that doesn’t spread out flat! You have no idea how many recipes I have tried and none of them worked out the way this one did. THANK YOU!
Madeline
I have made these so many times and it's always great. I was wondering if there was a way to make this go flatter but taste the same? I wanted to have my girls decorate cookies.
cheryl
can i freeze the dough
If I can how long can i freeze the cookie balls