This “chocolate chip cookie recipe” became known as ‘The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever’ after being challenged into a Twitter Bake-Off in 2009. Loaded with chocolate chips, this perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe is soft and gooey on the inside and chewy on the outside. The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever!
The story of the ‘best chocolate chip cookies ever’ all started when I started blogging. I’d always wanted to share what only my friends and family had only known, “Alice’s best chocolate chip cookie recipe” but up until this point hadn’t shared it with the world. You see.. my chocolate chip cookie recipe is all that and a bag of pretzels. The problem is, EVERYONE and their grandma thinks their chocolate chip cookies recipe is the best, too.
So I decided I wouldn’t do a post because it seemed overplayed (putting it mildly). I didn’t have it in me to enter the “I have the best chocolate chip cookies recipe” rat race.
But months ago I had asked the question on Twitter on why people believed their homemade chocolate chip cookies were the best. After some friendly trash-talking, Ashley Rodriguez and I would engage in the ” Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever Twitter War,” and the following week we engaged in a cookie bake-off.
I asked her to post her recipe, and she kindly obliged. I made her cookie recipe that same evening, and I must say they were incredibly good. I reported back my results to her and said, “They are really good, almost as good as mine.” Her next tweet went something like this, “Almost?” – a.k.a “Say what?!?” We weren’t the only ones baking our recipes. People who followed our cookie battle on Twitter also baked them to sharing their own thoughts on their food blogs. Depending if you like a more sophisticated cookie or the BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER, the verdict was clear. This recipe was the crowd favorite!
I can tell you she does have a fabulous recipe. But I can also tell you with bold confidence; my homemade chocolate chip cookie recipe is fierce.
The reason why I love this recipe is that it is not overly sweet and primarily uses brown sugar. The molasses in the brown sugar gives it a more caramel type chewiness around the edges and more depth than the Toll House chocolate chip cookies recipe. As a result, you get a nice paper-thin crisp bottom, but the rest of the cookie is soft and chewy.
Using kosher salt over table salt adds balance to the overall flavor. I will sometimes sprinkle 3 or flecks of sea salt over each ball of uncooked dough before baking just to get a tiny hit of salt amplifying the chocolate flavor to another level.
These are the cookies my Army sister who lives in Germany asks me to send her because they are all she can think about when she thinks of home. They are the same cookies she shared with her platoon in Iraq and the same cookies I will be sending to her in Afghanistan. I once sent her a batch of a new recipe and trusted me, she noticed. I was told not to deceive her again and send this version only.
Moral of the story… Do not tweet and trash talk if you can’t back it up. And for the record, I can back it up. Enough said.
-NOTES ABOUT THE RECIPE AND TROUBLE SHOOTING-
*PLEASE do not use table salt, the course sea salt gives the cookies a nice flavor and hints of texture. If you only have table salt, use 1/2 tsp. *When using sea salt, you will get small crunchy flecks of salt when you bite into the cookie. If you do not like this taste, go with 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.
-WHY ARE MY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES FLAT?-
If you’re cookies are coming out flat and not like the pictures there are probably 4 reasons for this.
#1) Your baking powder and baking soda is old. If your baking powder and soda is older than 1 year and has not been in a sealed (preferably air tight) container, it has lost some of it rising properties and isn’t reacting properly.
#2) Creaming. It is not enough to just cream the butter and sugars until it has come together. This recipe requires you to beat it with a mixer for 3 minutes until the texture of the butter and sugar turns to light and fluffy-just like the picture. This step is crucial as it whips air into the mixture to help the cookies rise properly. If you own a Kitchenaid stand mixer and bake regularly, I HIGHLY recommend purchasing the beater attachment with the silicon edge scraper. I’ve own two of these beaters because it saves me a step from having to stop the mixer to scrape the bowl down. I haven’t used the medal attachment for years since discovering the scraper attachment. I hate having to scrape the bowl down when baking and this attachment makes for a better workflow for me. I recommend this KitchenAid KFE5T Flex Edge Beater for Tilt-Head Stand Mixers
#3) Too little or too much flour. Flour should be weighed. This can make or break the recipe because just scooping flour into a measuring cup will never yield ideal or consistent results. Because all measuring cups are not manufactured exactly the same, weighing the flour is the only real way to measure correctly. If too little flour is used, the fat content in the butter will cause the cookies to spread more than usual. A good inexpensive digital scale (like this one Ozeri ZK14-S Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen Scale) pays for itself in joy and peace. Don’t let too much or too little flour ruin your baked goods you’ve worked so hard on. I own an older version of this scale and I use it nearly daily for weighing ingredients.
#4) Parchment paper vs. silicon mat – I’ve literally baked these cookies a gazillion times and I’ve noticed when I bake the cookies on parchment paper they hold their shape much better than the silicon mat. I get inconsistent results with the mat because of the natural wear and tear on them. A new mat will prevent the cookies from spreading a lot better than a really worn one. But parchment paper always yields the best results!
-Other Notes and Helpful Tips-
* I know most bags of chocolate chips are 12 oz but this recipe requires a lot of chocolate chips to help bulk the cookie up. You’ll need approximately 1.5 bags. I’ve found towards the last of the dough I sometimes add a small handful of extra chips because when we scoop cookies we tend to scrape just dough off the scoop and the last of the dough has a lot less chocolate.
*If you like your cookies to look uniform and the same size, please use a cookie scoop. It makes all the difference and works a lot better than the spoon method. I own this OXO Good Grips Medium Cookie Scoop
*For those of you interested in freezing your dough for future use, here’s a great article on HOW TO FREEZE COOKIE DOUGH. Having pre-frozen balls of dough is great when you need to bake a batch for future use.
*Some of my other favorite cookie recipes are these Drop Cracked Sugar Cookies, Best Oatmeal Cookies, and these Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches, just like the Girl Scout ones!
Updated: April 07, 2018
- 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 1.5 cups brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp smallish-medium coarse sea salt or kosher
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour (12 ounces) If at all possible, please weigh the flour
- 2¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Preheat the oven to 360 degrees. This is not a typo.. three hundred and sixty.
- Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it is nice and fluffy (approx. 3 minutes on medium-high speed on a Kitchenaid)
- Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes on medium.
- Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour until cookie batter is fully incorporated.
- Finally add chocolate chips until well distributed. The cookie batter should be somewhat thick.
- Drop about 2 tablespoons of dough or use a medium cookie scoop and plop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow the cookies to stay on the cookie sheet for an additional 2 minutes. Pick up the parchment paper with the cookies still on top and transfer to a cool non-porous surface. Allow the cookies to cool on the paper for at least 3 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
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I found this recipe Christmas of 2010 or 2011. .
I made it and we fell in love. .
I have made this cookie recipe 1k times.
My husbands Papa was an amazing man.
He served in the Navy and dedicated his life to his family.
He got really sick in 2010, and I brought him over a batch of these cookies.
It was the first thing he was able to eat and enjoy in awhile.
Every time I came to visit he would ask me if I made his cookies.
The cancer got worse and nearing the end of his life I kept these freezer ready.
Before he got too bad he would keep them next to his bed and heat then up for a midnight snack.
They were one of the only things he was able to eat and enjoy. . This recipe not only gave us cookies, but an amazing bond.
I’ve renamed the recipe “Dee`s cookies” and give them to the family every year at Christmas.
I just thought I’d share the joy this recipe brought us in such a hard time. Thank you
This is my go to recipe! I bought a scale for this recipe! Always a big hit.
Thank you so much for the recipe! I have made these many times now and they are fantastic! I use Ghirardelli bittersweet chips and they are always a hit. This is my new go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe!
I have been baking for years and have never rated a recipe until now. I LOVE this recipe. I substitute flour with the bobs 1 for 1 gf flour and they are delicious! I have had many people taste them and you wouldn’t even know they are gf.
Delicious looking cookies! Love the step by step pictures. I have a craze of trying new chocolate chip cookie recipes and hopefully will be trying yours this weekend!
These cookies were OK to be fair we used 1 3/4 cups of flour and the butter was mostly melted but these are certainly not the “Best Ever”. Very disappointed.
Best recipe! Thank you!
I use some bread flour instead of all AP flour for chewiness. And it doesn’t change the flavor at all. On this recipe, I use 8 Oz of bread flour and 4 Oz of AP flour.
Sometimes I add vanilla pudding to the cookie recipes I make to keep the oft longer, is that possible with this one? Or will it take away from the flavor?
I’ve been making these for about 5 years. Always a hit when I bust them out around the holidays. Thanks for the recipe! Merry Christmas.
We’ve been making this recipe for our Christmas cookie for years and agree that it’s the best one ever! We keep it bookmarked in several places just so we never lose it!
best cookies ever. made them several times everyone loves them thank thou soon much for recipe
This is the best ever cookie! My husband is so impressed with this recepie and has told me many times how much me loves them. I made 4x the recepe and added choc chips, Reese’s peanut butter chips, oatmeal raisin, coconut (macaroons) I rolled the cookie balls in a mixture of brown sugar and regular sugar and everybody is happy here! Thank you for what will be a lifelong favorite!!
Very nice flavor. I had them in a convection oven and used milk chocolate chips which made them a bit flatter. I have the dough in the refrigerator and am going to try baking them tomorrow at 360 without convection and from a cold state and see how that pans out. I really enjoy the flavor and I appreciate you sharing this yummy recipe.
These are the best chocolate cookies I’ve made in a long time. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Amazing cookies! I love how they crisp on the bottom and edges but still soft in the middle. The color also is lovely (great for gifts!). I couldn’t find flour so I improvised with 9oz of oatmeal and 3oz almond flour – combined and ground into a powder (via food processor). The cookies came out VERY flat but still tasted great. I then looked harder and found flour. I added 1/2 cup and then cookied the rest of the batter. Those ones turned out perfect. Just the right depth and even better with the soft inside and crisp outside.
These are perfect gift cookies, can’t wait to make them for the holidays. And maybe I’ll keep my own adaptation (oatmeal flour, almond flour, all purpose flour) because the flavor is unique!
Thank you! Gracias! Finally a great recipe for those of us who want a little gourmet look and taste from our chocolate chip cookies. Even at 5,000 feet pluse above sea level the recipe came out just like your pictures. Excellent tips too!
These are the absolute best chocolate chip cookies ever! Thank you so much for perfecting and sharing this recipe with perfect instructions. EVERYONE loves these! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!!!!
I really haven’t been wowed by a cookie. I’ve made a lot of cookies. I’m talking hundred of recipes but the baking gods shined down on me today and brought this little nugget of heaven to me. So easy to make (I didn’t have to chill anything!) and came up in a flash and the taste is out of this world. I got a little crazy and added some m and m’s to the mix and 10/10 would do it again
I made theses and they were really good the sweet and salty was a good balance and the cookie itself was tasty. 🙂 What I didn’t like is how big they got and I used a medium scoop that say 2 tablespoon right on it, and only got 26 cookies.Which we were disappointed.I needed 4 dozen.
This has been the only Chocolate Chip cookie recipe that I have used for.3 years now and I adore it. People can’t believe how amazing these.cookies are. My recommendation; just folow the recipe and dont deviate.
These are sincerely the best cookies I have ever made, and probably ever tasted. Thank you for sharing! I don’t know how I stumbled upon this gem, but I am insanely grateful!
And I meant to add – my sisters name is Alice, so I knew they would be good!
I’ve used this recipe for years now. I was frustrated with trying all different chocolate chip cookies and they turned out with average taste. In fact, I found these by googling “chip cookies that are actually good!”
These are even better the day after. I really *heart heart* these cookies.
Wish I had a kitchen aid to mix them in!
These are the best cookies ever! I know. Now for making the best chocolate chip cookies :). They are so fluffy! Thanks for sharing and I really can’t say enough about them!