Tips To The Fool-Proof Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone loves cookies, but flavor and texture can divide people. Some love chewy, soft cookies, while others prefer thin and crispy cookies. Some want chunks of chocolate, fruit or nuts in their cookies; others love a plain and simple cookie. There’s heated debate over whether sugar cookies should be frosted or unfrosted, and whether oatmeal cookies need raisins or chocolate chips in them or nothing added at all.

Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies cooling on a wire rack

And then there’s the chocolate chip cookie.

The chocolate chip cookie likely receives the most debate over what makes it perfect. Should it be crunchy, chewy, crispy or cakey? How sweet should it be? How big? How many chocolate chips?

There may never be consensus, but it’s safe to say that only a few recipes have come close to what many would consider the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Image of a baking ingredients with flour, sugar, eggs, and butter

In the Gold Medal Flour view, the perfect chocolate chip cookie comes from a few simple, yet important variables: the ingredients used, how they are prepared, and how they are baked. After lots of trial, error, and taste-testing, we’ve created the best, most foolproof chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Here are our tips to baking the best cookies:

High-quality ingredients = High-quality cookies

Even before you make your cookie dough, you can impact the quality of your chocolate chip cookies. It’s all about the best ingredients.

  • Start with good, unsalted butter.
  • Use the right chocolate chips. Semi-sweet, or any chips with at least 60% cacao content work best. That slight earthiness and bitterness to the chocolate really enhances its flavor when it’s baked into a cookie.
  • Make sure your baking soda is fresh. Old baking soda weakens its rising power, leaving you with flat cookies.
Baking process - the batter being mixed in a tabletop mixer

Preparing and Storing Cookies and Dough

There are a few ways to get the perfect prep for the perfect cookie. A big part of it comes down to the butter and preparing the cookie dough!

First, make sure the butter is the correct consistency. When it comes to baking cookies it’s best if the butter has the same softness as the soft part of your shoulder. Push lightly on your shoulder, then push lightly into the butter. They should feel similar, and that’s when you know it’s soft enough.

Second, be sure not to overmix the dough; overmixing can cause the end result to be overly cakey and airy. If you mix the dough with a stand mixer, take care not to overdo it; otherwise, it’s best to mix the dough with a wooden spoon.

Third, refrigerate the dough. You can let it chill overnight, but a full 24 hours or even up to 36 hours is best for flavor rendering. The cookies end up with a deeper, more caramelized flavor than ones that are baked right away.

Baking process - Chocolate chip cookie dough on a baking sheet ready to be baked

How to Put Cookies in the Oven

The keys to baking the best-looking, best-tasting cookies are all in how you mound the dough onto the baking sheet, what temperature you bake them and how long you bake them. Here’s our recommended method for putting cookies in the oven:

Use a 1/4-cup spring-loaded ice cream scoop to shape dough mounds, and place them at least 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Add a few extra chocolate chips to the top of the mounds so the cookies look nicer when baked.

As for the temperature, we bake them at a higher heat than is normal for most cookie recipes (400 degrees F vs. 350 degrees F). It seems to bake the cookies just right for us – so they’re golden brown and crispy on the outside but soft and chewy in the center.

There you have it – just a few simple tips and tricks for the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie. Happy baking!

Plate of three warm chocolate chip cookies by a cooling rack

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Yields: About 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, plus more for topping

Directions:

  1. In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; stir to combine.
  2. In a separate large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture; stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
  3. Refrigerate dough overnight or up to 36 hours.
  4. When ready to bake, heat oven to 400°F. Lightly spray two baking sheets with cooking spray.
  5. Scoop dough into 1/4-cup mounds and place about 2 inches apart on baking sheets (you may have to do multiple batches). Place a few extra chocolate chips on top of each mound.
  6. Bake cookies 10 minutes until golden brown on the edges and just lightly golden in the center. Let cookies cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer with a spatula to cooling racks to cool completely.

We hope you enjoyed our cooking baking tips and best cookie recipe! If you enjoyed this one, check out our other baking recipes here.