THE BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are my fool-proof, trusty, go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’s super chewy and soft in the middle with a crisp edge. It has a nutty and fragrant flavor from the brown butter and decadent pockets of dark chocolate distributed throughout the cookie!

I’m not gonna lie, chocolate chip cookies were one of those things that took me forever to get right because they never looked as aesthetically pleasing as the ones I saw online. But, I have finally figured out how everyone gets that picture-perfect cookie so give my tips section a read for all the deets!

Yield: 7 Large Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

110g Unsalted Butter
100-120g Dark Chocolate
160g Dark Brown Sugar
50g Granulated Sugar
1 Large Egg, room temp
Splash of Vanilla Extract
180g Plain/AP Flour
1/2tsp Baking Soda
1tsp Salt
Flakey Salt

STEPS:

Make brown butter: Place the butter into a saucepan and cook over medium heat until it becomes fragrant and the milk solids are visibly golden. While the butter is melting and bubbling away, make sure you give it an occasional stir so it browns evenly
Pour the brown butter into a separate bowl and let it chill in the fridge for a few minutes to cool down to around room temp
Chop up the dark chocolates into chunks. Pick out ~21 large chunks of chocolate and place them into a separate bowl for later. These are to be placed on top of the cookies
In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, vanilla, and room-temperature brown butter. Whisk aggressively until homogenous and the mixture goes slightly paler
Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold it in with a spatula until fully incorporated
Add the chopped chocolate and fold until evenly distributed
Shape into 90-95g (mine were 93g) balls of dough. Press ~3 chunks of the chocolate chunks we picked out at the start into the center of each ball of cookie dough
Pop them into the freezer or fridge and leave overnight (or for at least 2hrs if you must)
Preheat oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment
Pop the cold cookies onto the baking tray with space between each cookie and bake at 180°C for 15-20min (mine took 19min)
Freshly out of the oven, hit them with a healthy sprinkle of flakey salt and let it cool for a few minutes before transferring it onto a cooling wrack

AESTHETIC TIPS:

These steps are optional, its only for those of you who want your cookies to look extra professional
At the 10-minute mark of your cookies being in the oven, they should have reached a point where the center is very underbaked but the edges are starting to crisp up. Everything should have mostly flattened and settled into a cookie-like shape. Between this stage and it being done, it is the best time to adjust its appearance

Getting the perfect circle: At the 10-minute mark, you’ll be able to tell if the cookie is going to bake up into a perfect circle. Most cookies won’t, but that’s ok! Take two spoons or something large and round to help shape the cookie by pushing the edges towards the center of the cookie. If one side is lopsided, push it until it’s the perfect circle. Place it back into the oven to bake until it’s done and do the shaping one last time right when it’s done
The perfect chocolatey look: At the 10-minute mark, you’ll be able to tell if any of the cookies have unevenly distributed pockets of chocolate. If some areas look a bit naked, press in a few more chocolate chunks, and then pop it back into the oven so it can melt into the cookie!
Why won’t my salt stick: Make sure you hit the cookies with flakey salt while its still HOT. The steam will help adhere the salt to the cookie!
It’s not chewy: Do not over bake the cookies, when they come out of the oven, the cookies should be very soft. If the whole cookie is crisp right out of the oven, the moisture has evaporated and there wont be any chewiness left 🙁
One side is baking faster: Home ovens are rarely evenly heated so make sure to give it a rotate if your oven tends to heat one side faster! But if your oven is amazing, you do not need to do this.