If you know me and have invited me to an event or dinner, I’ve probably brought my classic chocolate chip cookies because I’m biased and think they are amazing and that everyone needs to try them. This saga started in college, I tried Jamie’s cookies (if you know Jamie, then you are blessed), and fell in love with giant, thick, almost cake-like cookies. So the journey started to recreate them. When I tell you that I followed her exact recipe multiple times, and even watched her make them at her house and took notes on my phone, I still failed. They literally turned out like flat pancakes every time I made them. So I started researching different thick cookie recipes and kind of made one up my own within that process, and now it’s failproof! So hopefully you don’t have to go through what I went through if you make these!
Honestly, once you perfect the dough/base, you can add any mix-ins like peanut butter, cocoa powder, cookie butter, sprinkles, oreos, etc. If you add a wet ingredient like peanut or cookie butter, you would do it after step #3. I have some flavor combinations and ideas written below the recipe!
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted cold and cubed butter
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ heaping cup of white sugar
- 2 cold eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla – I love the vanilla flavor, so I probably use more than this. I just eyeball it
- 3 cups of flour – start with 3 and then see how the dough comes together, you might need a little more (about ⅛ to ¼ cup more)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt – I also just eyeball this and do a big pinch or 2 of salt
- Measure with your heart chocolate chips (at least 1 cup, but I definitely use more)
Tips
- Your butter has to be cold, like right from the fridge, don’t let it sit on the counter. I usually cube it into ½ inch pieces, the smaller, the better, because it will incorporate a lot easier than big cubes.
- It calls for unsalted butter, but I’ve used salted in a pinch, and I really didn’t notice anything physically different with the cookies, like spreading; they just turn out pretty salty, so if you do this, make sure you don’t add extra salt that the recipe calls for
- Cornstarch is seriously what helps these be thick and kind of cake-like
- Most cookie recipes make you chill the dough in the fridge, but that’s the great thing about this recipe, you don’t have to! Because you are using cold butter and cold eggs
- If you try this recipe and your cookies still spread out a lot and you feel like you’ve done everything right, your cornstarch and/or baking soda probably needs to be replaced. It’s not that they expire fast; they just go bad or aren’t as effective quickly after opening them
- I use semi-sweet chocolate because I feel like it has a much better flavor than milk chocolate. I also love to use a combination of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chunks and mini chips.
- Use a flat edge, light colored cookie sheet. Anytime I would use a dark sheet pan, they would burn on the bottom, and anytime I used a sheet pan that had tall edges around it, the cookies wouldn’t bake evenly.
- I use a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I know that’s not available for everyone, but just know that if you use a hand mixer, it will take a while to get everything well combined since we are working with cold ingredients and thick dough.
- You know your cookies are done when they have a golden rim starting to form on the edge. Even if they look undercooked in the middle, still take them out because they will continue to cook in the pan or on the cooling rack.
Recipe
- Preheat oven to 410 degrees – line a baking sheet with parchment paper
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together your cold, cubed butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Depending on your method of mixing, it could take up to 4 minutes on medium-high speed.
- Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Then add your vanilla extract and mix.
- Slowly stir in dry ingredients, flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. You don’t have to pre-mix them in a separate bowl, but I usually do to make sure everything is well combined. I typically do low speed. Mix until combined; avoid overmixing.
- Stir in chocolate chips. Usually, I do this with a spatula to make sure I’m not mixing too much.
- Separate dough into medium or large balls and place on a lightly colored, lined cookie sheet. You can probably fit 6-8 on one sheet, for size reference. Depending on how big you make them, the recipe can make anywhere between 8-15 cookies.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. Keep your eye on them because some ovens cook faster than others.
- Transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
Flavor ideas
I wanted to add in some flavor and mix-in ideas because I think it would be so fun to start a lil cookie business one day, and already came up with ideas haha!
- S’mores – Marshmallow fluff + mini milk chocolate chips + crushed up graham crackers
- Midnight – Cocoa powder + dark chocolate chunks
- Celebration – Rainbow sprinkles + cake batter flavor
- Banana pudding – Banana pudding instant powder mix + crushed up vanilla wafers + white chocolate chips
- Biscoff bliss – Cookie butter spread mixed into batter + crushed Biscoff cookies + white chocolate chips
- The works – semi-sweet and dark chocolate chunks + caramel pieces + chopped pecans + sea salt sprinkle
- PB Extreme – Peanut butter spread mixed into batter + chopped Reece’s + Reece’s pieces
- Hazy Cinnamon – Nutella stuffed + rolled in cinnamon sugar before baking
Let me know if you try them! 👩🏻🍳🍪🧈