Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: This cookie has big butterscotch flavor and the small amount of cream cheese in the dough adds an almost indiscernible tang that takes these cookies over the top.
Texture: Ultra soft and perfectly tender.
Ease: Super easy!
Pros: Perfect for when you’re craving that super soft texture in a cookie.
Cons: None.
Would I make this again? I’ve been making this recipe for years!
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This is the only recipe you’ll ever need for SOFT Chocolate Chip Cookies.
The kind of cookies that are ultra tender but still hold their shape and are loaded with tons of ooey gooey chocolate chips.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m obsessed with chocolate chip cookies.
But sometimes I crave different textures. Sometimes I want them to be super soft chocolate chip cookies. Other times, I crave thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies.
Don’t get me wrong, practically any homemade chocolate chip cookie is good with me. It’s just every once in a while, you have a texture craving that must be satisfied.
Which texture of cookies do you prefer? Does your family love soft-batch cookies? Chewy? Crispy? Some combination of it all?! Let me know in the comments below!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make SOFT Chocolate Chip Cookies
There are a few key ingredients to ensure your cookies are ultra-tender and soft.
Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is hygroscopic, which means it takes in and retains moisture (better than granulated sugar). Adding moisture to your cookie dough can help make it softer and chewier, and stay soft for longer. That’s why I use much more brown sugar than granulated sugar in this recipe. Learn how to DIY your own brown sugar and how to keep it soft in your pantry here.
Cornstarch
Cookies with cornstarch are ultra soft and often slightly gooey and paler in color. It can also aid in lift and height, as it is a thickening agent. Just be sure not to add too much extra cornstarch, otherwise, your cookies will develop an almost glue-like pudding consistency. I find in this recipe, 2 teaspoons is the Goldilocks measurement.
Cream Cheese
Not only does cream cheese add richness and flavor, but it also tenderizes the cookies so they’re super soft, even slightly chewy, without being cakey due to the fat content. I know it’s a bit of a hassle to add in cream cheese here but believe me, it’s these small details that take your cookies from good to GREAT. Be sure to use full-fat brick cream cheese, not cream cheese for spreading on bagels.
How to Bake SOFT Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Be sure your oven isn’t running too hot. If your oven does run hot, you may want to reduce the temperature slightly to avoid overly browning these cookies.
- Remove these from the oven just before they actually look done baking. The residual heat will continue to cook them and they will solidify as they begin to cool.
- Avoid using a dark-colored baking pan. Learn more about the best (and worst!) baking pans here.
How to Bake THICK Cookies
The key to making sure your cookies bake up nice and thick instead of flattening into those little sad puddles:
- Make sure your butter isn’t too warm. Make sure your butter is at a COOL room temperature, about 67°F, before creaming with the sugar. Learn more butter temperature (and why it matters!) here.
- Next, make sure your balls of cookie dough aren’t warm when they enter the oven – otherwise, the dough will melt too much.
- If you experience issues with your cookies spreading too much, try popping the tray of shaped dough into the freezer while the oven preheats.
- If you live in a very humid climate, try adding a couple extra tablespoons of flour to the dough to combat that added moisture.
How to Store Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 4 days. You can also freeze your cookie dough balls. Learn more about freezing cookie dough, and baking from frozen, here.
More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Soft Batch Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
- S’mores Cookies
- See ALL of my cookie recipes here!
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Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups (349 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 10 tablespoons (142 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 large eggs, at cool room temperature
- 2 cups (340 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- If baking right away, preheat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, cream cheese, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- If time permits: wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours but no more than 72 hours. This allows the dough to “marinate” and for the final cookies to become softer, thicker, and more flavorful. Let dough sit at room temperature until it is just soft enough to scoop.
- Using a medium (1 1/2-tablespoon size) spring-loaded scoop, drop balls of dough onto prepared baking sheets.
- Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, or until barely golden brown. Don’t overbake – the cookies will continue to cook from residual heat. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
This recipe was originally published in 2013 and was recently updated with new photos, weight measurements, and more recipe tips. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Does it make any difference if I use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar for these cookies?
Would the salt measurement be the same for fine sea salt or regular table salt – 1 teaspoon?
Thank you.
Donna
Can you help me troubleshoot? Cookies are so delicious but deflating after pulling out of the oven (I read your linked articles to troubleshoot but I don’t think they are the same causes/issues as I ran into). I don’t think I over-creamed the butter and sugar as my butter was actually a little too cool and still stayed under 3 minutes. I do think I may have over-beat the dough though during the dry ingredient incorporation. Do you have a video of this or estimated time of how long it should take to add all the dry ingredients in?
In the past I have used cookie mix pouches and I hand stirred it together, so it was a quick process and not a problem. I have never used a mixer for cookies before. The dough was pretty smooth, sticky, almost fluffy this time, not as dry/crumbly or dense as I think it should be. I tried cooking both immediately after mixing and after chilling for 24 hours and the chilled were much fluffier but ultimately fell the same way. Would love to know what you think. Still super delicious either way lol!
Hi Mallory! I’m glad to hear that you enjoy these cookies, even though you’re experiencing this strange deflating once baked! We don’t currently have a video for these cookies, but it shouldn’t take long to incorporate the dry ingredients into the dough – but I like to stop mixing while some flour is still visible, take it off the mixer, and then fold in the chocolate chips by hand. Finishing this step by hand helps avoid overmixing, and ensures everything (including the bottom of the bowl!) is incorporated. Without having baked alongside you, it’s tough to say what may otherwise be the culprit here, but I’ll add some possibilities below – and I apologize is some of these things are what you’ve already read and ruled out!
– Do you live somewhere humid, or at high altitude? You may need to try adding an additional couple of Tablespoons of flour to your dough, as these environments need a little more flour to create a stable cookie.
– 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 a multitude of cookie issues. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time.
– How old are your leavening agents? If your baking soda/powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can fail to rise/spread 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.
– You mentioned that you didn’t think you over-creamed, but that your butter may have been a little too cold. This could mean that you actually under-creamed, and although it’s unlikely that under-creaming alone is the cause of your cookies collapsing, it’s still possible that this caused some issues. If you haven’t already, check out Tessa’s article here on creaming and butter temperature.
I hope something here helps, Mallory, and I hope you’ll give these cookies another try – they really are delicious! Thanks so much for commenting and Happy Baking!
I have made SO MANY cccs before and these are some of my favorites! The texture is amazing- a bit chewy, soft, the perfect thickness, wonderful flavor- altogether a dreamy chocolate chip cookie. They were so easy to make and ended up being a huge crowd pleaser! Definitely adding these to my recipe book. 🙂
Just wanted to say i have been SEARCHING for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, who knew this whole time i was missingcream cheese!! thank you so much, they turned out PERFECT ! i even just halfed the recipe and got 12 perfect ooey gooey cookies! These soft chocolate chip cookies are an absolute triumph! The velvety texture melts in your mouth, revealing pockets of decadent, gooey chocolate. My taste buds are in pure ecstasy, and I’m genuinely thankful for stumbling upon this divine recipe!
I’m overflowing with gratitude for these soft chocolate chip cookies! Each bite is a blissful journey of warmth and sweetness. Thank you a million times for sharing this heavenly recipe—it’s a treasure that brings immense joy to my taste buds!
Can these be made with gluten free 1:1 flour?
Hi Sandra! We don’t bake with gluten free ingredients, so we can’t say for sure! Feel free to experiment and let us know how it goes 🙂
Hi! Can I use browned butter with this? I’ve tried chilling the browned butter and thawing it at room temp to cream with sugar. Just not sure if it’ll work with this too. TIA!
Hi Kae! Your question is a tricky one to answer. American butter is about 80% butterfat and 20% water (on average, depending on the brand of butter), so when you brown butter, you lose that extra moisture/water as it evaporates through the browning process. It takes some experimentation to alter a regular non-browned-butter recipe to work with browned butter for that reason. You can simply try adding a little water back into the recipe, or start with more butter than the recipe requests, in order to compensate for the moisture you’ll lose as it browns. It’s something you’ll have to experiment with a little in order to perfect, but it can be done, and it’s a fun experiment in the meantime 😉 Let us know how it goes if you give this a try! Happy baking!
Can you make the cookies smaller? I make a large variety of Christmas cookies that I hand out as gifts. (Bite sized cookies work much better on the plates.) If so, how small can I go and what would be the approximate cooking time? Thanks in advance.
Hi Lynn! Sure, feel free to use a 1-Tablespoon cookie scoop, and the bake time will probably about 8-10 minutes, but as we haven’t tested this, this is just an estimate. I recommend baking off a couple and verifying the bake time before baking the rest of the batch off. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
made these tonight, best chocolate chip cookie, only difference i used mini chocolate chip. thank you for sharing these are delicious
These cookies were amazing! I followed the recipe except instead of 2 cups chocolate chips, I added 1 white chocolate and 1 dark chocolate chips plus 2/3 cup of chopped walnuts. I chilled in fridge 60 hrs then froze them in log shape (make 2 logs), then thawed the log in the fridge the night before baking. I cut the log accross into 1/2 inch slices and then shaped each slice into 2 balls. Kept them in fridge while waiting to bake and took 10-11min at 350F. My kids could not stop eatcing them. Definitely chill extra time as I have made them before and they are not as chewy without time in fridge.
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! It always comes out perfect. I added about a teaspoon of sesame oil, tasted it to see if it needed more and dipped the tops in sesame seeds before I baked them. They came out, so delicious! You must chill the dough for the best results.
The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe out there!! Soft & Chewy 100%!
I will have to play with the timing. I set my oven to 350 and it tends to run hot, but after 10-11 minutes the centers were pretty ooey gooey. They were just starting to brown a little, but the rest of the dough/cookie still looked pretty blonde. I let the first batch sit out and cool and even after reaching room temp, I would have probably wanted at least another 2 minutes in the oven. The taste is delicious though! Only change to ingredients I would make is for the chocolate chips, measure with your heart :P.