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!
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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!
How to Make The Best Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to make soft chocolate chip cookies:
The key to the best soft 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 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 beautiful, uniform, evenly-shaped and 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!
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!
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. Add the vanilla and eggs. 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.
Photos by Jess Larson.
BAKERY STYLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES MADE BY OUR COMMUNITY
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I made the dough and am pleased with the consistency (my first time with a mixer, I only got it last year, I’ve always mixed everyrhing my hand. wow so much easier!). Didn’t notice the chill time as I glanced at the directions before attempting to make this recipe. You might want to move the preheat step to after the chilling step. I look forward to tasting the cookies tomorrow! I did divide the dough in half and mixed chopped nuts (Brazil, pecan and hazelnut) into one bowl.
Hi Tessa, I am definitely trying out this chocolate chip cookie recipe today. Please, can I use this recipe for commercial purposes?
Thank you.
that sound so delicious!
These look ssssooo good ! I appreciate
Best recipe I have found. I changed it on the second batch and it is now perfect! I’ve never made cookies this good before. Thank you
Made these today and I have to say these are the best homemade chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever made. I followed the instructions but only baked 11 minutes. They turned out crunchy around the edges and perfectly soft and chewy inside this is a winner, so glad I found it!
Hi, I just wanted to know if I could use cake flour instead of all purpose flour for this recipe? Thank you in advance!
I want to thank you for this wonderful recipe! Y’all, look NO further. This is it! Follow the directions, weigh your flour and sugars. Pay attention, preheat the oven, FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS, don’t play grammar police just follow the recipe. Use common sense! If you need to make a bunch of substitutions maybe try a different recipe. Sorry for the mild rant I just had to scroll through many ridiculous comments to leave this lady a compliment for bringing back childhood memories. This is the only recipe I’ve found that reminds me of cookies I had as a child (I’ve made these cookies multiple times now and they are wonderful every time) The dough freezes well, stays fresh in the fridge for a few days…everything she says it does. Thanks again!
Tessa, I am 65 years old and needless to say have been making cookies for many years. I was looking for the perfect recipe and yours is it!! I used dark brown sugar, I didn’t use the mixer not did I refrigerate the dough and I only baked one sheet at a time for approximately 12-13 minutes. I had some special dark chocolate chips about 1/4 cup that I threw in also. They absolutely were perfect and delicious! I think the difference is adding more brown sugar (which I think lends to the chewiness) than white sugar and the 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Thank you for a great recipe! I will be throwing the other recipes away.
Can you make these cookies without a hand mixer or stand mixer?I’m really keen on making these cookies but I do not have a hand/stand mixer. I hope I can’t can still as I really a mom craving some good chewy chocolate chip cookies!
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I’ve made these cookies 2 days in a row. The first time I “marinated” the dough for 24 hours. The second time, I did not. The first batch of cookies came out just okay. They were a little lumpy and they were edible, but I wasn’t “wowed” by them. The following day they tasted much better. The second batch that I made today came out much better. They looked more like cookies and not lumps and tasted good right after they cooled down. I will continue to use and try to perfect this recipe. I haven’t changed any ingredients. I do think I might reduce the salt a little and maybe the flour too. I will also try to marinate the dough for a full 72 hours to see if the flavor changes. I noticed no changes in flavor from the 24 hour marinate. Thanks again!
I made these cookies to take to work for a holiday party and they were a huge hit! They are so delicious!!