Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Full of sweet butterscotch & chocolate flavors, exactly how a chocolate chip cookie should taste!
Texture: Thick and chock full of gooey chocolate with slightly crisp edges.
Ease: No special ingredients, equipment, or skills needed!
Pros: Easy everyday delightful chocolate chip cookie recipe. I think you’ll love this one.
Cons: None.
Would I make this again? I’ve already made this recipe many times and have the dough in my freezer for when the craving strikes.
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My favorite type of recipe to bake is absolutely COOKIES. They’re so fun and simple and can teach us SO much about the science of baking.
The Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies is still one of my most popular posts, visited by over two million people.
That post inspired the creation of my second cookbook, The Ultimate Cookie Handbook. And since THOUSANDS of you have purchased that cookbook, I think it’s clear that we’re all obsessed with cookies here.
That’s why I’m SO thrilled to share this Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe with you today. In my opinion, it’s the perfect easy everyday chocolate chip cookie recipe. This homemade recipe is simple to make and yields thick, beautiful golden brown cookies, crisp at the edges and gooey at the center.
Watch the video below to step into my kitchen and see exactly how to bake these delicious cookies with me. I give tons of tips and tricks for getting perfectly thick cookies with chocolate chunks, and you can see what every step of this recipe should look like!
There’s actually a time-lapse video shot of these cookies cooling right after I took them out of the oven. You can see that they hardly shrink or deflate as they cool. If you only beat the butter and sugar for 2 to 3 minutes max, your cookies shouldn’t deflate!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make The Best Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
The key to the best soft, Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies is to take the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven just before they look like they’re done baking. They should still appear slightly wet in the very center. The residual heat of the oven and pan will finish cooking the cookies through to soft perfection once you allow them to cool completely.
Also, measure your flour correctly to improve your baking forever. Too much flour will lead to dry, dense, or crumbly chocolate chip cookies that barely spread.
Why Are My Chocolate Chip Cookies Flat?
When making cookies, be sure your butter is at a cool room temperature before beating with your sugar. It shouldn’t be greasy or overly soft otherwise it’ll melt and spread the cookies too much.
The warmer your chocolate chip cookie dough is when it enters the oven, the thinner and flatter your cookies will be. To prevent flat cookies, try freezing your balls of cookie dough while your oven preheats. Learn more about how to bake THICK cookies here.
Better yet, refrigerate your chocolate chip cookie dough for 24 to 48 hours. This ‘marination’ process will transform your chocolate chip cookies by making them thicker, chewier, and more flavorful! Plus, this is a perfect way to make your delicious cookies ahead of time. Read more about the magic of chilling your cookie dough here. NOTE: chilling is OPTIONAL for this recipe but using chilled dough will enhance your cookies!
How to Make CHEWY Chocolate Chip Cookies
One of the keys to CHEWY chocolate chip cookies is to use more brown sugar than granulated sugar. The molasses in the brown sugar draws in more moisture, making the cookies thicker, softer, and chewier.
For extra chewy cookies, try adding an extra egg yolk to this recipe. You can also replace half or all of the all-purpose flour in this recipe with bread flour for an ultra-chewy bite.
How to Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
For the BEST Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies, make the recipe below keeping these top tips in mind:
- Use a kitchen scale to measure your ingredients for the BEST most consistent results.
- Make the recipe exactly as written, without substitutions, at least the first time you bake it.
Use the correct baking pan and a spring-loaded cookie scoop for bakery-quality cookies at home. More on that below!
Why Use a Cookie Scoop?
Using a stainless steel spring-loaded cookie scoop when portioning out cookie dough is one of the KEYS to beautifully uniform, evenly-shaped, evenly-baked cookies. My cookie scoop is one of my most frequently used kitchen gadgets. A spring-loaded scoop saves you *so much time* in forming the balls of dough. When using a scoop, you ensure each ball is evenly sized so the cookies bake evenly, meaning you don’t have any small overbaked cookies or large underbaked cookies. Learn more about Cookie Scoops and how to use them here!
What’s the Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder?
Baking powder and baking soda are both chemical leaveners that work to create light textures in baked goods.
Although baking powder actually contains baking soda, the two leaveners are very different. Baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable – just take a look at the impact the type of leavener used had on each of the cookies below, and find out more in my Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder article here.
Which Baking Pan is Best for Cookies?
Take a look at the chocolate chip cookies below. These cookies are all the same batch of cookie dough, baked at the same temperature of 350°F, baked for the same amount of time of 12 minutes. The only difference? The type of baking pan used!
Check out my Best (and WORST) Baking Pans article here for more details on the science of baking pans.
How to Keep Chocolate Chip Cookies Fresh
The best cookies are the freshest, there’s no magical way around that. However, here are a few tricks to keeping them fresh and soft for as long as possible!
Can You Freeze Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I love the taste of cookies straight from the oven the best. I always keep pre-scooped balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in a resealable bag in my freezer, so I can bake cookies off and have them warm from the oven in a matter of minutes whenever I want. Here are more tips for freezing cookie dough.
But for those times when you need to keep already-baked cookies soft, see below for my tips. First of all, most cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temp for up to 5 days. Be sure they are completely cooled before storing.
How to Keep Cookies Soft
To keep your baked chocolate chip cookies soft, you can add an apple wedge, piece of bread, or a tortilla on the top and bottom of the cookies to the container a day or two after baking them, or whenever you find the texture starting to harden. The moisture from the bread or apple will migrate to your cookies, making them soft and chewy again.
A tortilla is a favorite of mine because it takes up much less room than a slice of bread, and doesn’t transfer any flavors or aromas like an apple wedge. Not to mention, it fits into a round cookie tin pretty perfectly.
How to Refresh Stored Cookies
What I like to do is reheat and refresh the cookies in a 350°F oven for 3-5 minutes. Your toaster oven should work just fine. This improves the texture and there’s nothing like a warm chocolate chip cookie!
Tessa’s Favorite Tools for This Recipe:
- Large 3-tablespoon size cookie scoop for that bakery-style texture
- Or use a medium 1.5-tablespoon size cookie scoop and bake only for about 10-12 minutes instead
- Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Baker’s Half Sheet won our side-by-side comparison of the best baking pans
- 12″x16″ non-stick parchment paper for the best bake and easiest cleanup!
- The Ultimate Cookie Handbook: Your Guide to Baking Perfect Cookies Every Time by Tessa Arias
More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
- Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies (these are CHEWIER than this recipe)
- Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies (dairy-free)
- Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies (ultra flavorful!)
- Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies (thick and delicious!)
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (for serious PB lovers only!)
See ALL of my types of cookie recipes & cookie baking tips here!
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Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups (380 grams) all-purpose flour**
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature (67°F)
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (247 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups (340 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until creamy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat until combined, scraping the bowl down as needed. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- If time permits, wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. This allows the dough to “marinate” and makes the cookies thicker, chewier, and more flavorful. Let dough sit at room temperature just until it is soft enough to scoop.
- Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a large cookie scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
- Although I prefer cookies fresh from the oven, these can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. See post for storage tips.
Recipe Notes
Photos by Jess Larson.
Previous Baking Challenge
This recipe was one of our recent picks for the Handle the Heat Baking Challenge. Every month, we select a recipe, you make it, snap a photo, and enter to win PRIZES!
Hi
I made these cookies today.
They tasted amazing, but spread a little bit too much even though I followed your recipe exactly, using kitchen scale. What did I do wrong?
Thanks
Followed the recipe to the T but have spread and turned into one giant sheet pan cookie!? Tastes fantastic but disappointed because they don’t look very appetizing.
These are my new GO TO chocolate chip cookie recipe. Will be making these for my grandkids!!
These are the best chocolate chip cookies that I have ever made! I wasn’t a fan of chocolate chip cookies but now I am! I used vegan butter, egg subtitute and sucanat sugar (after grinding). I broke off a piece of the dough and put it in the fridge for about six minutes and about 10 minutes in the freezer. The rest I kept in the fridge for 24 hours. The freezer batch did not fall. I’ll find out about the rest of the dough in two days. But, yes I will keep this recipe and make over and over again.
I made this dough last night and baked them this morning. They are SO GOOD! I have tried so many chocolate chip cookie recipes looking for the perfect one and these might just be it! I used half semisweet chips and half bittersweet chunks and they were perfect. These are thick, soft in the middle, crisp around the edges and absolutely delicious. I would definitely recommend baking these bakery style chocolate chip cookies as soon as possible. Wishing I had not given them all away now as I drool on my keyboard. Haha. Thanks Tessa for another great recipe!
Haha! This is the best comment ever! Thanks so much, Cheyenne 🙂 🙂
What temperature should I use if using fan assisted. I hear you reduce by 20 F
So I made these and followed the recipe exactly and they came out AMAZING! I made another batch but used dark brown sugar instead as I had no light brown sugar, refrigerated them for about 16 or so hours, took them out and baked them about 30 min after they came out of the fridge ( still hard to scoop at first) and they are so so oily! I used parchment paper ( no spray at all), not sure what happened this time around, they seemed to have to cook longer but now have that weird over cooked taste but wet look, any suggestions?
Hmmm how strange… I’m wondering if something else went awry?! I can’t think of any reason why dark brown sugar would yield oily dough 🙁
I also used dark brown sugar and they were a little oilier than a normal chocolate chip cookie but after being in the fridge over night they cooked up perfectly. I did have to bake them a bit longer than the recipe said. But over all they were still great!!
Happy to hear it worked for you and that you loved the recipe!
So disappointed! Baked these cookies today after following the recipe exactly & refrigerated the cookie dough for two days. Made chocolate chip “rocks” that were so dry & cakey 🙁
Oh no! It sounds like you may have accidentally added in too much flour, Ginny! It’s a common issue. I’d definitely recommend using a kitchen scale to weigh your flour when baking 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe! I have searched for a great chocolate chip cookie recipe and this is it!!! I just made a batch and feel sick from eating too many. 🙂 I baked them straight away but am looking forward to refrigerating or “marinating” the dough the next time. Thanks again for ending my search!
Haha!! This makes me so happy. I’m curious – did you find the cookies improved after refrigerating the dough?
Made this recipe with the exact recipe and they turned out like flat cakes??? Literally a cake but shaped like a cookie, I’m very confused, what went wrong?
Butter from different regions contain different amounts of liquid in them Try refrigerating them. A few hours is good, overnight is better
Did you follow the directions about the butter? She mentioned if the butter is too warm they will melt.
I have made this recipe before and it AMAZING! I would love to try to make a cast iron skillet cookie with this recipe. I have a 12 inch cast iron skillet, any tips for baking time?
Hi Toni! Check out Tessa’s skillet cookie (pizookie) recipe here! This recipe was designed for a smaller 10-inch skillet, but you can just experiment with your larger skillet and shave 5-10 minutes off the bake time. Pay closer attention to the sensory indictors outlined in the recipe (bake until the edges are golden but the center is still gooey to your preference). I hope that helps 🙂
Hi I love cookies but now have to have glutin free ones and natural unrefined sugars or sweeteners (honey, Stevia, coconut sugar or monk fruit). So can I use almond flour and coconut palm sugar or ones I mentioned above? What do you suggest? Thanks
Regards, I miss my cookies…..Sandy
I’m always looking for chocolate chip cookie recipes, my cookies are always flat ,I’ll try these and see how they turn out I hope yummy
How long will these cookies stay fresh? I want to make about 100 of them to take on a 5 day trip!
Hi Deborah! You can store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days, if you add an apple wedge, piece of bread, or a tortilla on the top and bottom of the cookies. The moisture from the bread or wedge will migrate to your cookies, keeping them soft and chewy 🙂
Heyy Ma’am. I just love cookies but there is a problem. I’m a pure vegetarian and I can’t have eggs..Please help me with this situation please post an eggless recipe. Thanks❤
I used bob’s red mill egg replacer twice with this recipe and it worked great. This recipe makes great cookies.
Do you mean vegan ♀️
Hi Tessa! How many days will these cookies stay tasting fresh for?
Do these cookies taste good!
Yum, I am a huge cookie monster and chocolate chip is my favorite, will definitely have to try these!
🙂 🙂 🙂