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thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies
You can’t go wrong with these thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies. The recipe is born out of America’s Test Kitchen. Expert cooks spent many attempts figuring out the best recipe for this variety of cookie. It’s one of the one thousand recipes found in The New Best Recipe all-new edition from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.
If you are looking for a fabulous kitchen resource that holds the best recipe for grilling, cakes, and so so much more, I highly recommend The New Best Recipes book. Great chicken salad, egg salad, soups, home-made tomato sauce, home-made meatballs. I have the 2007 version and have barely scratched the surface of all it contains in the ten years I’ve owned it!
like a bakery cookie
Back to the thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies. Once in a great while I’ll make it out to a bakery or deli — chain or independent. Inevitably freshly made chocolate chip cookies sit behind a case, or are conveniently wrapped waiting to be purchased near the cash register. These are that kind of cookie. Soft, chewy, chocolaty. Great texture. A superb finish to any lunch (or dinner).
When I make these, the recipients often comment on how delicious they are. A great gift idea, or just to have to snack on. I prefer to add toasted almonds to mine, but there are other options to add coconut, or black and white chocolate chips with pecans.
Start with the dry ingredients. Preheat oven to 325, adjust oven racks, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Makes easy clean-up too.
Mix the butters and sugars, egg, and an extra yolk, and vanilla until combined.
Add your preferred level of accessories. Obviously semisweet chocolate chips, but I also love adding toasted sliced almonds.
The shaping technique
According to The New Best Recipe book, there’s a right way to shape these cookies before baking them. So I pulled together an illustration based on their visual on p. 776. Somehow the jagged surface allows the cookie to bake up with a pretty appearance.
Place on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 325 for 18 minutes. Rotating halfway through and switching shelves with the other cookie sheet.
Leave cookies on the baking sheet to cool. But best served warm!
I have average-sized pans, so I can only fit six on a pan. This recipe makes eighteen large cookies. Therefore the first round of baking involves two cookie sheets of six each. The second round I just bake six in the center of the oven, rotating once, and they turn out fine.
Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies by nickelplatekitchen.com
Bakery-worthy chocolate chip cookies with optional toasted almonds will please any crowd. Based on recipe in The New Best Recipe book.
Ingredients
- 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 12 tbsp (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until just warm
- 1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup toasted sliced almonds (optional)
- 1 and 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 Adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 325°. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick cooking spray.
- Step 2 Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl, set aside.
- Step 3 Either by hand or with an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in the chips to taste.
- Step 4 Roll a scant 1/4 cup of the dough into a ball. Hold the ball with the fingertips of both hands and pull into 2 equal halves. Rotate the halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, join the halves together at the base, again forming a single ball, being careful not to smooth the dough’s uneven surface. Place the formed dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, jagged surface up, spacing them 2 and 1/2 inches apart.
- Step 5 Bake until the cookies are light golden brown, the outer edges start to harden, and the centers are still soft and puffy, 15-18 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Cool the cookies on the sheets. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets with a wide metal spatula.
- Step 6 Other variation on the cookie, Black and White Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pecans, calls for following the regular recipe, but substituting 1/2 cup white chocolate chips for 1/2 cup of the semisweet chips. Add 1 cup chopped pecans with the chips.
Did you try this recipe?
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Welcome to Nickel Plate Kitchen! I'm Elizabeth, wife of Jim and mom of two boys (a 3yo and a newborn). I'm passionate about good food on a budget with room for extravagance now and then. I hope you find something helpful while you're here. Thanks for stopping by!
How would these do with a different flavor of chips?
Great question. I’ve never tried them with any other flavor of chip, but my guess is the experiment is worth a try and you’ll likely be pleased with the results. 🙂