My new favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Crisp on the edges with gooey, chocolatey centers.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple years ago I made it my life goal to develop the best chocolate chip cookie recipe of all time. I tested and tested and tested recipes until I finally landed on this one. I shared this on the blog a few years back, and I still stand by this recipe 100% and use it all the time! Don’t get me wrong–those cookies are absolutely delicious, and everyone I share them with also loves them.

BUT, don’t you think it’d be wrong for me to just stick with the same recipe, the same way of doing things, never stepping into new methods and discovering new ways of doing a chocolate chip cookie? I think it would be. And I think that’s one of the best things about baking–there’s always something you can change and there’s always something new you can try. So that’s where this recipe came from.

How are these different?

To me, chocolate chip cookies are the holy grail when it comes to dessert. I’ll skip the pies, cakes, and mousses if it means I can indulge in a warm chocolate chip cookie. It’s not often that you see them on the dessert menu at restaurants, but that’s probably because they’re just made so much better at home, from scratch, with love.

These are actually quite different from my first chocolate chip cookie recipe on the blog. I’m changing up some ingredients and going for a little bit of a different texture here. And let me tell you – I absolutely love these things, and I love the process of making them too. There’s honestly not a single cookie recipe on my site that I don’t absolutely adore – and I don’t say this lightly – but this is by far my favorite cookie recipe of all time.

Equipment you may need…

Stand mixer: this is the one I have and I love it! I’ve had it for years now and I’ve never had any trouble with it. You definitely don’t “need” a stand mixer for this recipe, but it sure does make life a lot easier.
Measuring cups/spoons: I’ve been linking these in all of my posts because I love them SO much! They are beautiful and look just like some other expensive ones on the market (but wayyy cheaper).
Mixing bowls: I love these glass mixing bowls from Amazon. They’re especially perfect for food photography.
Parchment Paper Sheets: say goodbye to the annoying rolls of parchment paper. These parchment sheets are a kitchen staple, makes everything so much easier!
Cookie scoop: great for getting uniform cookies. This set comes with 3 sizes you can choose the size you love the most.

Ingredients for these Chocolate Chip Cookies

Unsalted butter
Granulated sugar
Brown sugar
Large eggs
Egg yolks
Pure vanilla extract
All-purpose flour
Kosher salt
Baking soda
Baking powder
Semisweet chocolate chips
Pecans
Coarse sea salt (for sprinkling)

How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies

Step 1 – Cream the butter & sugars together

One mistake that a lot of people make is not allowing the butter and sugars to cream together long enough. I like to beat these together, using my paddle attachment on my stand mixer, for about 5 full minutes. You’ll notice a slight lightening in color – which is a sign you have a good amount of air being whipped into your butter.

Step 2 – Beat in your eggs & egg yolks

Something a little different about these cookies is the fact that I’m using both whole eggs and egg yolks. I love using yolks in addition to eggs because they’re basically just pure fat. This addition of fat lends to a more tender, chewy interior all while maintaining that crisp exterior that I LOVE.

Be sure to use room temperature eggs and egg yolks, as we don’t want our butter to curdle. Also be sure you’re mixing each in one at a time, scraping the bowl down as needed between each one.

Step 3 – Gradually add your dry ingredients

The key word here is gradually. It’s tempting to just throw the whole bowl of flour into your egg mixture and start mixing, but unless you want to be wearing flour – do it slowly.

Once it’s all added, mix on low speed until you see only a few streaks of flour left. Then, remove your bowl from the stand mixer.

Step 4 – Add your mix-ins

For this recipe we’re using both chocolate chips and chopped pecans. If you don’t like pecans or your allergic, leave them out without the need to substitute anything else. I will say though – the pecans make the world of a difference in these cookies!

Instead of using our mixer to beat these in, we’re going to fold them in by hand. That way we don’t risk overmixing!

Step 5 – Chill your dough

This is ~perhaps~ the most important step – and it’s one that I’ve often skipped thinking it won’t make that big of a difference.

Sure, you can skip this step and bake them off right away, but chilling your dough for even 30 minutes will allow the flour to begin to hydrate, and all the flavors to mend together in the most beautiful way. Long story short: you need to chill your dough!

Step 6 – Scoop & Bake!

The moment we’ve all been waiting for… time to bake these babies!

I like to use a 2 Tbsp cookie scoop to portion my cookies – that way I get uniform cookies and everyone is happy bc no one gets a bigger cookie than another person lol. I then will portion about 6 cookies to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper (if you’re making smaller cookies you can add more). These will spread a bit so they need quite a bit of room!

If you’re baking 2 sheet pans at a time, rotate each pan 180° and switch their places (move the bottom pan to the top and the top pan to the bottom) 8 minutes into baking. This will allow for a much more even bake across the board.

A word on freezing…

I ALWAYS, and I mean always, freeze my cookie dough. I typically don’t have a need to make all 20 or so cookies, so I portion all the cookie dough out into balls, bake the ones I want to, and freeze the rest.

To freeze:

After chilling the dough (makes it easier to shape into balls and prevents them from being frozen together), portion out all the dough into balls.
Place the dough balls you’d like to freeze into a gallon-sized ziploc bag.
Use your mouth to suck the air from the bag, seal the top, and place the refrigerator.

I label all of mine because I freeze almost all the cookie dough I make, so feel free to do the same if you’re baking a lot of cookies!

When you’re ready to bake:

Remove desired amount of dough balls from the freezer, place them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, and allow them to sit here for about 1 hour.
Bake as described below.

If you just really really want a cookie right now and you don’t want to wait for the dough to sit at room temperature (relatable lol), you’re welcome to bake them from frozen but they may be a little bit thicker on the inside. Just be sure you’re still watching the edges and pull them out when they begin to brown.

I hope you all love this recipe as much as I do, and if you just can’t get enough of chocolate chip cookies, check out my other recipe here. Let me know which one you like best!

If you bake this recipe, be sure to tag me @sarahsdayoff so I can see your beautiful cookies!

Love,

Sarah

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” -Philippians 1:6-

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