Why go to a bakery when you can go to your kitchen? These chewy chocolate chip cookies are THAT good. They’re also actually chewy, not cakey like so many recipes seem to be out there! 

THE INGREDIENTS: 

Flour: Flour is our structure that not only helps to hold our cookie together, but provides the foundation for the soft, chewy bite that many have come to love. Each flour has differing percentages of protein and other components. So, we cannot recommend completely substituting this flour for another kind. A common substitute is adding cornstarch to all purpose flour to make cake flour. Although we have cornstarch in our recipe, it is not in a large enough quantity to approximate cake flour-so do not substitute, please! 

Looking for a healthy swap? You can reduce the flour in this recipe by 1 cup and replace it with 1 and ½ cup oats. Oats soak up liquid differently than flour, so you might have to increase the oil to ¾ cup to accommodate for this.  You could also do 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour in this recipe. So far, that’s the most we’ve found we can add to any cookie recipe without changing the overall structure of the cookie. Of course, adding oats now makes this an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie-and we declare it must be named so! (you can do whatever you want, of course). 

White Sugar: You probably want your cookies to be sweet, and we are right there with you! We like to use a mixture of white sugar and brown sugar in this recipe to get the optimal flavor and texture. First, let’s highlight the benefits of adding white sugar to our chewy chocolate chip cookies. White sugar keeps our cookies from having the texture of cake by not over-adding moisture. Not only that, but white sugar also helps to give us the color we want and helps our cookies to spread. 

Brown Sugar: Now that we know what white sugar does for this chocolate chip cookie recipe, what’s up with brown sugar? Due to the presence of molasses, brown sugar adds moisture-giving our cookies a soft, chewier interior. That same molasses also provides a wonderful flavor that goes very well with the hefty vanilla in our cookies! 

Cornstarch: Now this ingredient is the odd one out! Cornstarch is not a super common ingredient in cookie recipes. However, hear us out! It is our little secret ingredient that gives us that bakery-level softness in the middle of our cookies. Without it, the cookies also wouldn’t be as tall! Why do we care if they’re tall? Less dough in the center=less softness and less chew so height is a must. 

Baking Soda: We’re going for cookies, not hockey pucks. Baking soda helps to add rise to our cookies and is activated by the slightly acidic brown sugar in this recipe. 

Salt: This secret weapon helps to balance all the flavors in our cookie recipe. Feel free to increase or decrease as desired, but we think you’ll be happy with the amount we chose. 

Milk: Can we have two secret ingredients? Well, we do anyway. Milk provides similar benefits to cornstarch, ensuring soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies. It also helps to add more liquid to our dough, which means we don’t need to add as much oil-so, it saves us from cookies that are too oily! 

Vegetable Oil: Ok, ok, maybe three secret ingredients. You were expecting butter, weren’t you? Surprise! Oil helps the cookies spread less than butter, giving us that large and chewy center. Not only that, but it also helps to add softness throughout the entire cookie. If you were wanting to use butter, we would recommend 2 sticks of melted butter. Although we don’t chill our dough, you may want to chill dough with melted butter to ensure too much spreading doesn’t occur! 

Eggs: A classic! Eggs bind our dry and wet ingredients together, while also providing moisture to our dough and structure to our cookies. They help to keep our cookies from crumbling, in short. 

Vanilla Extract: We’ve made chocolate chip cookies without vanilla extract before. After all, they’re really all about the chocolate, right? Wrong. Those cookies were S-A-D. Just like cinnamon really brings oatmeal raisin cookies together, vanilla is the background flavor behind the perfect chocolate chip cookie. It may seem like a lot of vanilla in this recipe, but this makes a large batch of cookies! Feel free to adjust to your desire, we can say honestly that less or more would still make a pretty great cookie. 

Chocolate Chips: Duh! What kind of chocolate chip cookie would this be otherwise? We understand chocolate chips are a controversial topic. How many to add? What kind do I use? Well, fear no more. We say 1 and ½ cups of chocolate chips gives plenty in each bite-definitely around 8 or so in each cookie, if not more. If you’re worried there aren’t enough chocolate pieces in each bite, we also have a secret tip for you. Once your cookies are all nicely made on the baking sheet, add 2-3 chocolate chips on top of each one. Not only will this make your cookies much prettier, but hey, more chocolate! For the dough itself, anywhere between 1 to 2 cups of chocolate chips should still make a winner. Just go for how much you like! 

Now, what kind of chocolate chip? Or should we add chunks? Maybe chop up a candy bar ourselves? Let’s start with sweetness. Our own intuition always tells us to reach for the dark chocolate chips-the more chocolate flavor, the better! However, we worked against our own preferences this time and went with semisweet. There’s just something so comforting with the most classic chocolate chip in one of the most classic cookies. The flavor is plenty there and the cookie does not get too sweet. So, no matter your preference, we really ask you to give semisweet a try! But whose kitchen is it? Yours! Any chip-dark, milk, white, butterscotch, peanut butter, etc would make a cookie that gets absolutely swiped from the cookie tray. 

Now, when it comes to shape, it’s all about aesthetics. If you love the look of chunks, go ahead. Have a favorite chocolate candy bar? Chop it up and throw it in for a fun twist. We go with chocolate chips because we have them on hand most often, but would definitely use up a bag of chunks in here as well. In fact, you could do a mix of chunks and chips-no one would complain! (And if they do, just don’t give them a cookie). 

Walnuts: Nuts are protein, so that cancels out the rest of the cookie, right? Besides letting us tell that joke, walnuts add crunch and a bit of savory flavor. This helps our cookies from becoming monotonous-meaning you don’t feel like you’re taking the same bite over and over again. The savory flavor, much like salt, balances the sweetness and gives a more complex flavor to the cookie. Grocery store baked goods, for example, taste like a block of sugar masquerading as a cookie or a cake. All of our efforts to add a hint of savory and background flavors reward us with that bakery style cookie we all love. However, those things are expensive! Making them at home is much cheaper, even with pricey walnuts in them. 

Flaky Sea Salt: Here’s an optional ingredient! Without the salt on top, these are still considered a keeper. With salt on top, however? Legendary. There’s just something about salt and chocolate that is addictive-dare we say even better than salted caramel. Go too heavy on this, however, and you’ll learn there can be too much of a good thing. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

How Do I Prevent My Cookies From Cracking? When your cookies are cracking, it’s likely it’s a bit too hot in your oven. To prevent this, we bake these chocolate chip cookies at 325 F instead of the classic 350 F. It does take a little longer, but it is worth the wait. Otherwise, cracks may form because you are not rolling your cookies well enough. We personally use 2 scoops of a small cookie scoop to make these cookies. When we don’t press hard enough to combine them, a clear division line can be seen. Cracks don’t affect flavor, luckily, so this is no critical issue. 

How do I Make Soft and Chewy Cookies? You need to add three things: cornstarch, milk, and melted fat. Brown sugar helps, too, if you want to ensure the cookies are soft enough. Just a little cornstarch (2 teaspoons) and milk (2 tablespoons), as well as roughly ¾ to 1 cup of your choice of melted fat (butter or oil) per roughly 2.5 cups of flour. 

Can I Substitute Oil For Butter in Cookies? Yes, ¾ cup of oil equals roughly 1 cup of melted butter. However, bear in mind that this will affect your texture! Butter-based cookies spread a bit more and are a bit more crisp. 

What Flavor Variations of Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Are There? We’d say millions and honestly we’re not even sure if that is an exaggeration or not. You can make kitchen sink cookies by adding some crushed pretzels, chips, and several kinds of baking chips (white chocolate, peanut butter). You can make malted milk ball cookies by replacing the chocolate chips with malted milk balls. In fact, you could even sneak a little malt powder into the dough! Another great idea is to double down on chocolate peanut butter. Try adding peanut butter chips and chocolate covered peanuts. Finally, for our last variation idea, we like to say hello to sesame. Sesame sticks and a little ring of toasted sesame seeds around the sides provides a nice flair. Some ginger in the dough and you’ve got a unique cookie everyone will be asking about. 

How Long Do Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Last? Stored in a covered container at room temperature. We would say these cookies last around 3 days, 5 if you put in a little extra work to keep them moist! Try storing them with a spare piece of bread-the bread will transfer its moisture to the cookies. Replace the bread as often as it gets hard. 

How Can I Soften Up Hard Cookies? Have no fear, though, if your cookies get hard before you’re done eating them! Simply add around 1 teaspoon of water on top of the cookie and heat it in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Still hard? More water, more warmth. If you’re patient, you could even use the oven instead of the microwave! 

What Goes With Chocolate Chip Cookies? Let’s start with drinks, shall we? Chocolate chip cookies are lovely with milk, but it doesn’t have to end there. Personally, milk tea is a winner that everyone should try with their chocolate chip cookies at least once. Staying on the milk theme, a glass of cold or warm malted milk takes the milk and cookies combo up a notch. Not looking for dairy? No problem. Other teas we like to pair with chocolate chip cookies include black tea and earl gray. If you’re a mint person, a glass of mint tea makes this dessert minty and chocolatey! Finally, an orange tea provides that orange-chocolate craving without the need of opening up an orange.

Looking for more dessert pairings for a sweet spread that will impress? A cookie assortment with oatmeal raisin cookies and sugar cookies is sure to be kid-friendly. On the fancier side, try parfaits with whipped cream/yogurt, fruit, and crumbled up chocolate chip cookies. We think apricots, strawberries, and cherries are sure to make everyone happy. Love ice cream? Serve milkshakes, malts, or even a scoop or any flavor. Perfect pairings are basic vanilla or a fruity flavor, such as strawberry, to pair with the chocolate in the cookies.