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: Super easy 30-minute recipe.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Easy, delightful chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’ve made this recipe probably 100 times always 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 three 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.
What Makes Cookies Chewy, Crisp, or Cakey?
My free guide reveals the ingredients and tweaks that matter.
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!
I love this time-lapse video 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!)
- Marbled Chocolate Chip Cookies (classic and double chocolate chip cookie dough in one cookie!)
- 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
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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
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
Photos by Jess Larson.
Cookie came out just right! We devoured them in seconds. Simple, quick and delicious
Curious why in your blog you point out the difference between baking powder and soda – show a photo of cookies that cook best with both – yet your recipe only contains baking soda?
I disagree! I personally preferred the batch with baking soda only, which I mention in the full Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder article here.
Hey,
if I wanted to add bits of crushed up butterscotch candies do I have to add less choc chip?
And
Would adding the butterscotch candies affect the cookie dough?
I know there is a recipe for M&M cookies on the website however could I use this one and replace the chips for other fillers like m&m or different candies ? If so, would I need to adjust anything or just simply switch
Love this recipe so much!
Sure! Nothing would need to be changed, just swap out however many chips you’d like for the same weight in another mix-in 🙂
I’ve used this recipe for a few years now and everyone ALWAYS tells me I make the best chocolate chip cookies. Wish I could take credit because they really are the best! I’ve been asked for the recipe several times. And when I try out a different chocolate chip cookie recipe, my husband says “why would you do that!” 😂
Ps. I don’t chill mine and they’re still amazing.
We’re so glad this recipe has become your go-to and that it always gets rave reviews (including from your husband, ha!). This absolutely made our day, thanks for sharing!
This recipe is really good i just used 2 cups of flour instead of 3
Can these be turned into a cookie cake? I have 2 round 9 inch pans that I can use. I have used this recipe many times and they’ve always turned out so good.
We haven’t tried that ourselves, but other readers have with success! Feel free to give it a try and let us know how it turns out 🙂
Do you have any suggestions for adjustments to bake time and temperature / how thick would be ideal to ensure the get fully cooked?
Thanks!
I haven’t tested this exact recipe as a cookie cake, but you can use our Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake recipe as a guide! The ingredients are different, but it also uses a 9-inch pan (you’ll use two) and bakes at 350°F—so the bake time should be pretty similar. Just keep an eye on the edges for doneness and adjust as needed. Let us know how it goes. Good luck!
Hey, can these be baked and then frozen? If so, how long can they be stored frozen and how would you recommend thawing? Thanks!
Hi Mel! We recommend freezing the cookie dough and baking fresh whenever a craving hits—that way you get the best flavor and texture. But you can definitely freeze any leftover baked cookies in an airtight container for up to a month. Just let them sit at room temperature to thaw before serving.
For more tips on keeping your cookies fresh longer and how to refresh stored cookies, check out the section “How to Keep Chocolate Chip Cookies Fresh” just above the recipe 🙂
I’ve been using this recipe since I made my first batch… 10 batches ago!
I have added nuts, and cinnamon & they always turn out amazing! I have also stored dough balls in my freezer and I’ve found they have even better flavour after being frozen!
Can you change the sugar
To cane sugar!?
We haven’t tried that but you’re welcome to experiment! Just keep in mind that the granules of cane sugar are slightly larger and they have a more pronounced molasses flavor. There will be subtle differences in taste and texture. Let us know how they turn out if you give it a try!
Emily, I substituted the granulated sugar for cane sugar. I also substituted the brown sugar with organic brown coconut sugar. I used the same measurements that the recipe called for. They turned out 👌 they had a great texture and taste. So anyone that wants to make these just a little bit healthier of a version these are great substitute options.
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
Came here to say I substituted granulated sugar for cane sugar and the brown sugar for organic brown coconut sugar. They tasted amazing and they were perfect texture.
This was a great recipe. I didn’t have 2 cup of chocolate chips so I used only 1 instead and it was enough for our family. I also decided I wanted more cookies so I used my small cookie scoop and baked for 12 min. I ended up for 4 dozen cookies and they’re delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
These did not disappoint! They were so good! I followed the recipe exactly as written, weighing my flour and sugars to get it right. (I added some toffee on top that I made using your recipe) 🤗
I baked two cookies right away and refrigerated the rest 48 hours. I baked another three after “marinating them” but honestly I thought both ways were just as delicious.
Thank you for amazing recipes!