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.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
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!
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”NfieA4z7″ upload-date=”2019-05-18T16:19:30.000Z” name=”Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies” description=”Ultra thick Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies feature golden brown edges with ooey and gooey centers. This easy recipe can be made in 30 minutes! ” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]
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. 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.
Photos by Jess Larson.
BAKERY STYLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES MADE BY OUR COMMUNITY
Tag @handletheheat and use the hashtag #handletheheat for a chance to be featured!
The first batch wasn’t cooking properly so I kept adding two mins, two mins, eventually to the point I over baked them. Second batch same thing 11-13 minutes and they weren’t cooked through. Kept adding more time but they aren’t cooking fully through. Scared to over bake them again so hoping they cook resting on the pan. They sure taste good though but why recommendations on baking properly?
Hi Lindsey! It can be tricky to pinpoint exactly what’s happening with your cookies without baking alongside you, but here are some things that may be happening:
– Were any ingredients substituted, reduced, removed, or accidentally forgotten? Every ingredient in a baking recipe is there for a reason, and many ingredients need the perfect balance to chemically react with one another, to form the perfect bake. That’s why reducing sugar, using a different type of flour, skipping leavening agents, etc can have such a big impact – and that’s why ensuring you measure accurately is so important. Even seemingly small changes can mess with a recipe’s chemistry, resulting in issues.
– How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mismeasure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time.
– Your oven might be running a little cool. If your oven runs cool, it will take longer for your cookies to bake and they may not brown as much. Do you have an oven thermometer to check your oven’s temperature? Check out Tessa’s article here about ovens, full of tips.
– How old are your leavening agents? If your baking soda/powder (soda in this case) are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can fail to rise and spread properly, fail to brown properly, fall after baking, and much more. Baking powder and baking soda can also lose their effectiveness long before the expiration date on the packaging. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here.
– What type of pan are you baking on? Different materials of pans conduct heat differently, so while darker pans may cause the bottoms of cookies to burn, certain other types of pans can fail to conduct heat efficiently, requiring a longer bake time for your cookies to bake and brown properly. Tessa discusses and shows the differences between a variety of baking pans in this article here!
I hope something here helps, Lindsey, and I hope your cookies turned out well despite the few extra minutes in the oven! Happy baking 🙂
A classic and delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe. My go to! Marinating the dough is essential here. Spectacular every time.
They look perfect, Kate! So glad you enjoy these!
I don’t understand. I did it to exact measurements and my cookies were really were dry and didn’t spread?
Hi Laurel! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies didn’t turn out as they should for you. It sounds like too much flour may have accidentally been incorporated. How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mismeasure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe – resulting in dry, lackluster cookies that don’t spread. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope that helps, and I hope you’ll give these cookies another try – they really are incredible! Happy baking 🙂
Very good recipe!
Can I make these using browned butter? I love the flavor
Hi Donna! The process of browning butter drives off the water content in the butter, so you’re left with less moisture in your dough. Feel free to experiment with this recipe using browned butter, but you’ll need to alter the quantity of dry ingredients to make up for the lost moisture – or alternatively, give Tessa’s Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies or her Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe a try instead. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
I didn’t try your recipe, yet but another one from a brand of imitation butter. My batter was super creamy not coarse like yours. The cookies aren’t flat but are more cake like, no ooey gooeyness, as I desire and that’s been happening a lot lately with my chocolate chip cookie 🍪 baking even with real butter! I want to know why my dough doesn’t look like regular chocolate chip cookie dough and my butter was soft but I didn’t think it was too soft.
Hi Betty! While I can’t speak to other cookie recipes, I can point you in the direction of some resources that may help you get to the bottom of these issues! Check out these resources:
– How to Cream Butter and Sugar – which includes info and visuals on butter temperature.
– How to Measure Flour – helpful tips, especially as it sounds like you may be accidentally adding too much flour into your cookies, which could account for the cakiness and lack of spreading you noted.
– Oven 101: What You NEED to Know – info on common oven issues, which could be another reason you’re experiencing issues with cookies not spreading in the oven.
I also highly recommend sticking with real butter unless a recipe has been specifically formulated to use something else. Baking is chemistry, and when you change an ingredient like butter that’s so vital to a recipe’s structure (not to mention flavor!), it can change the recipe in many more ways than you might think! I hope something here helps, Betty, and I hope you’ll give this recipe a try! Let us know if you do 🙂 Happy baking!
I love this recipe! I add a bit of flaky sea salt across the tops and they are perfection.
Absolutely delicious! Sold me not only on the wonderful taste, but also the fact that it uses less sugar and butter than my previous ‘go-to’ recipe (not really for health, more for cost:)
Can these be frozen and cooked as you like over time?
Hi Botija! Yes, they sure can! Check out the instructions for this at the bottom of the Tip Box, just above the recipe 🙂
Hello! Given this recipe and the brown butter cookie recipe, I was wondering if it was possible to use half soft butter and half melted butter, to get the best from both. If this is possible, in that case is better to use this recipe or the one of brown butter, in terms of the other ingredients and proportions? As they are quite different (the use or not of bread flour and baking powder, quantity of chocolate chips etc). Thanks!!
Hi Chiara! Both cookie recipes are formulated differently. These Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies use the creaming method, and therefore require cool room temperature butter in order to cream properly. On the other hand, the Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are formulated to use browned butter, where the butter’s water content is driven off as it browns, so there’s less moisture in the recipe – so melted butter isn’t a straight swap here, either. This is why the proportions of some ingredients are different. Essentially, both recipes are more different than they seem at first glance, and in order to combine the two, it will take some experimentation and tinkering. I’d probably recommend using the Brown Butter recipe as a base, because you can’t use the creaming method the same way with melted butter, and take it from there. Be sure to also read the Tip Boxes on both posts (above the recipes) to learn more about the ingredients and chemistry of both recipes before you begin. Good luck and happy baking 🙂
Thank you so much for that! And what if I brown the butter and then let it come back to room temperature, in order then to use the quantity needed for this bakery style recipe and in the soft form required? So I will have the nice taste of the brown butter but also the nice consistency of this bakery style recipe. Sorry for all these questions! I am trying to find a perfect recipe that takes the best of both (bakery style and taste of brown butter) to bake the best cookies from now on 🙂
HI Chiara! You’ll still be dealing with less liquid that way, and also brown butter doesn’t always cream as well as non-browned butter, so it’ll still take some experimentation 🙂
Or also trying the bakery style with half creamed butter and half melted (not browned, so it doesn’t have the reduced moisture)? Would this be a good trial or because of some scientific reason it wouldn’t turn out good?
Hi Chiara! It will still alter the chemistry of the recipe because the Bakery Style require creaming, and only cool room temp butter can cream properly – but feel free to experiment as you like!
Hello! I was wondering, with this recipe and other of your cookie recipes, can the balls of cookies be formed just after the dough is being made and before setting in yhe fridge? So putting the dough to set in the fridge overnight already portioned. If this is possible, once they are out of the fridge, should they be cooked immediately or still resting them at room temperature before cooking them? Thanks!
Chiara
Hi Chiara! Yes, you can portion the dough out into balls before chilling, and just bake straight from the fridge (the colder the dough, the thicker the cookie!). Tessa generally prefers to chill the whole mass of dough because the flavors meld a little better, and it prevents the dough from drying out – but it’s much easier to portion the dough out prior to chilling, so we totally get it! Just be sure to place the dough balls inside a ziptop bag or airtight container, to prevent them from drying out. Happy baking 🙂
Hi Kiersten, thank you so much for your reply! May I also please know if the time should increase of few minutes if cooking straight from the fridge? Also, can I use a fan oven (both with this recipe but also in general with all your recipes)? Thanks, Chiara
Hi Chiara! Generally, you can bake dough balls straight from the fridge without adjusting the bake time, or maybe adding a minute or so if your dough balls are on the larger side. Most American recipes assume you’re using conventional (non-fan) oven settings, but learn more about adjusting for convection/fan, and more oven info, here! I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
I made these and my kid said they are the best ones I’ve ever made. It was tough waiting 24 hours because I have to keep the vulture from eating the cookie dough for so long, but it seems it was worth it! Thank you!