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.
Is there anything I should be doing differently if i’m going to be using a toaster oven? Or am I just totally setting myself up for failure?
I can’t say for sure, Priya, we haven’t tested these in a toaster oven. Please let us know how it goes if you give it a try 🙂
Hi Tessa.. I want to thank you so much for giving the best chocolate chip recipes… I tried your recipe a few months back and absolutely loved it… After that I also tried a few other recipes but none compared to this one… The only other cookie recipe that I like better than this one is your brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies and they are just pure heaven and chilling the dough takes these cookies to another level…Keep up the fabulous work..
Thanks so much for the kind comment, Mariyam! I agree completely with you, both are my favorite as well!
I loved them! They were perfect!
I wanted to love this recipe, but the bottoms of my cookies browned well before the middle cooked. They aren’t burned, just a bit crunchy on the bottom. The only things (I think) that I did differently were to use regular cookie sheets instead of half sheet pans and a medium cookie scoop instead of a large since I don’t have a large. I had thought I simply needed to reduce the baking time accordingly to account for the size difference, but still had an issue. I’m sure I must have done something wrong, but am not sure what. Any ideas?
Hi Alexis! What type of cookie sheet did you use, was it dark or light colored? You were correct in reducing the baking time with a smaller cookie scoop, but the surface you bake on has a profound impact as well on how quickly your cookies bake, brown, and spread out. We suggest avoiding dark-colored nonstick pans as they conduct heat far too aggressively and result in darker cookie bottoms. We recommend using unlined aluminum pans, like from Nordicware or Chicago Metallic. I hope that helps, and I really encourage you to try this recipe again! It (along with the Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies) is one of my all-time favorites, and I’d love for you to enjoy them the way they’re meant to be 🙂
Hi! I used a light colored Wilton cookie sheet. I’m so confused because I’ve never had issues like this in the past. I’ve been wracking my brain and am wondering if maybe I needed a sturdier pan and perhaps a higher oven rack? I used the middle. Should it have been the upper middle instead? Also, I’m sorry if this is a stupid question but does parchment do anything for the baking process other than result in an easier cleanup? I’ll definitely try these again. They did have a good flavor. It’s just the consistency that was off in my first attempt. The brown butter toffee cookies were next on my list to try 🙂
I actually think it might be your cookie sheet! Have you had this issue in the past when baking cookies on that specific cookie sheet? Tessa experimented with different types of baking pans, including Wilton’s non-stick, in this article HERE, and I can see just from the photos that the bottoms are much more brown on that cookie sheet. It’s honestly a personal preference, but I’d suggest sticking with the Nordicware half sheets if you’re looking for a lighter coloring on the bottom.
Baking on the middle rack with cookies is normal. The pan that you bake on matters more than parchment because that’s actually what conducts the heat, and the material of the pan is what matters most. Parchment paper doesn’t conduct heat, and like you said, just makes for an easy clean up. How were the tops of the cookies? Were they golden brown or darker like the bottoms?
I’m so sorry, I forgot to check the box to be notified when a comment was added! I’ve never had this issue before, which is why it’s confusing me here. My Wilton sheet is a regular finish, not non-stick, but it is undoubtedly thinner than a Nordic Ware half sheet pan. It was only the bottoms that over browned. The rest of the cookie was fine. Thank you for helping me figure this out 🙂
I just baked them and they were PURE perfection My friends loved and there kids couldn’t stop eating them ❤
Wonderful! So happy to hear your cookies were enjoyed by all! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Absolutely the best chocolate chip cookie recipe EVER! And I have made ALOT! I made it exactly and chilled atleast 24hrs. The only thing I did was add mini chocolate chips and chocolate chunks! Perfection!
Delicious!! Can’t go wrong with extra chocolate, yum!
This recipe is ABSOLUTELY a keeper! I think I’ve made it 10 times so far, giving baked cookies or frozen dough balls to friends and family. They have been such a blessing.
I do have one question though – I’m trying to do more thoughtful, handmade stocking stuffers for family this year. I’ve always found the ‘cookie mix in a jar’ gifts to be cute and thrifty.
Do you think this recipe could be adapted to a mix like that? Leaving out the butter, eggs, and vanilla, of course. I imagine combining the wet ingredients with all the others (in the jar) should work hypothetically, with only potential downsides being less leavening (from not being able to cream just butter and sugars) or overmixing.
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Hi Lindsay! What a fun idea! Cookies in a jar are SO cute, my mom makes them for everyone at Christmas 🙂 I honestly can’t say for sure how the cookies would turn out though if the dry ingredients including the sugars were mixed together. I would suggest experimenting in advance if you can, just to make sure the cookies turn out ok. Please let us know how it goes! Good luck!
Just made these, the only thing I did different was using dark brown sugar cause thats all I had lol. They turned out so yummy!! I scooped the dough balls and put them in the freezer on a platter while I preheated the oven. Good recipe!
Glad you enjoyed them, Lisa!
WINNER! Throw away all you other recipes!
Happy to hear this!
Husband just said these are the only classic chocolate chip cookies to make from now on. They were the perfect consistency of taste and texture you want.
This is my 7th handle the heat recipe I have made and I can confidently say Tessa knows what she’s doing abs her recipes never fail!!!!
Haha yay! So glad these cookies were a hit!
Finally found my go-to recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies! However, when I doubled the recipe, the cookies came out with crispy/crunchy edges like they were stale & a bit dry, and the inside was chewy. I doubled everything, including the baking soda, and measure with a scale. Is there anything to be aware of when multiplying the recipe?
We haven’t experienced that issue when doubling the recipe, Jan! How strange! You are correct, every ingredient should be doubled. Was your baking soda or any other ingredient expired? These cookies do have golden brown edges with a chewy center, do you think perhaps they were baked a bit longer than your last batch? Were your baked cookies flat as well? I wonder if maybe your butter wasn’t at a cool room temperature. That can result in thinner cookies and more spread, which could result in crispy edges. I hope you give this recipe another try! Fingers crossed watching those little details carefully will make all the difference!
I have baking sheets with and without sides. I always thought the sides hindered the bake, but see that you prefer pans with sides. Now I’m unsure of which pan to bake cookies on! What is your opinion?
Hi Patricia! We prefer a rimmed baking sheet, like these unlined Nordicware sheet pans, but Chicago Metallic is great too. Aluminum sheet pans are used and loved in most culinary schools and professional kitchens. We’ve found that when baking cookies on a rimless baking sheet, they browned more quickly and finished baking much sooner than on a rimmed pan, they’re just not our preference. When baking on a rimless baking sheet, be sure to keep in mind that the timing of what you’re baking will have to be reduced. I hope that helps!