The best chocolate chip cookies

Name: The best chocolate chip cookies
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: Makes 12
Cuisine: British recipes
Ingredients: 120g unsalted butter, at room temperature; 100g soft light brown sugar; 75g white granulated sugar; 1 medium free-range egg; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 200g plain flour; ½ tsp salt; ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda; 150g milk chocolate, chopped; Sea salt flakes to sprinkle (optional); You’ll also need…; 2 baking sheets lined with non-stick baking paper

Portion size: Makes 12
Hands-on time 15 min, oven time 15 min, plus chilling and cooling
Difficulty: easy

Ella Tarn

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After the best chocolate chip cookies recipe of all time? Trained pastry chef Ella Tarn tested various versions, honing, tweaking and perfecting the blend of ingredients to find the best possible version. Our easy recipe makes chewy-yet-crisp cookies with generous chunks of milk chocolate, topped with a sprinkling of sea salt flakes.

The trick to soft, chewy cookies: American-style cookies like these should have just enough crunchy crust around the edges to hold the chewy centre together. However, the cookies shouldn’t be too hard or they risk crossing over to being a biscuit. The trick is not to overbake them – they should still feel soft, almost underbaked, when you take them out of the oven (they’ll firm up as they cool).
How to prevent cakey cookies: The cookies will spread as they cook, so space out well on the baking sheets. If they don’t have room to spread they’ll end up too thick with a sponge-like texture. Chilling the dough before baking helps to develop the flavour and to control the spread as the cookies bake: the outside melts first, helping the cookies to spread out at an even rate.
Customisable recipe: Try adding your own inclusions to the cookie dough. Mix up the type of chocolate (we love caramelised white chocolate) or try candy-coated chocolate beans, chewy toffees or chopped nuts. See more ideas in the Know-how section, below. Avoid treats very high in sugar, such as marshmallows, which can burn.

Ready for a cookie challenge? Try these distinctively wrinkly pan-bang cookies, a cult US recipe.

Before you start

Select your ingredients carefully for making cookies – it makes all the difference with this simple recipe:

Good quality butter. You need butter rather than margarine, and not just for flavour: the alternatives don’t melt in the same way during baking, and you need that melt to help create the all-important cookie spread.
Chopped chocolate. We used chopped milk chocolate rather than chocolate chips because we love how the chunks melt into irregular puddles in the baked cookies.
Granulated sugar. Our cookies are made with a mix of soft light brown and white granulated sugar. We found this combination helps the cookies spread at a more even rate as they bake, so they’re neither too thin and crisp, nor too thick and soft. See Tips for more info on how difference types of sugar affect cookies.

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Ingredients

120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g soft light brown sugar
75g white granulated sugar
1 medium free-range egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g milk chocolate, chopped
Sea salt flakes to sprinkle (optional)

You’ll also need…

2 baking sheets lined with non-stick baking paper

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Method

Put the butter and sugars in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined.
In a small mixing bowl mix together the flour, fine salt and bicarbonate of soda. Beat this into the butter, sugar and egg mixture to form a dough. Stir in the chocolate using a wooden spoon until evenly distributed.
Roll the dough into 12 equal balls using your hands, then put on a plate and chill for 1 hour 30 minutes.
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Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Space out the cookie balls on the baking sheets and bake for 15 minutes; they should still feel slightly soft to the touch once baked, but they’ll firm up once cooled. Cool completely on the baking sheet, then scatter with sea salt flakes to serve, if you like.

Nutrition

266kcals Calories
12.8g (7.7g saturated) Fat
3.3g Protein
33.9g (21.1g sugars) Carbs
1g Fibre
0.4g Salt

Quick wins & tips

If the dough is a little sticky, dust your hands with flour when shaping.

Cookies made with only white granulated sugar (or caster sugar) will be paler and have a crisper texture because the sugar in the mix melts quickly and the cookies spread more thinly during baking.

Cookies made with all light brown sugar will be darker in colour, softer in texture and have a deep caramel flavour

Watch the video to see these cookies in all their glory…

Make Ahead

Complete the recipe up to 24 hours in advance, cool, then keep in an airtight container. Or make the dough up to 24 hours ahead and keep covered in the fridge until ready to shape and bake. Cookie dough freezes well in a sealed food bag or well wrapped in cling film; thaw fully to continue with the recipe.

Cook smarter

How to jazz up chocolate chip cookies
Chop up your favourite chocolate bar and stir into the mixture instead of the milk chocolate for an even more decadent cookie.

Freeze chewy toffees until solid, then push one into the centre of each ball of cookie dough (step 3). The toffees will give the cookies a melting caramel middle when they’re warm.

Dip each cooled, baked cookie into melted chocolate and leave to set on a lined baking sheet for a double chocolate cookie.

Use 1⁄2 tsp peppermint extract instead of the vanilla (step 1) to make mint choc chip cookies