Do you really need a tutorial just to make chocolate chip cookies? Nah! We just wanted an excuse to whip up a batch of our very favorite cookies and share it with you! Besides, everyone makes cookies a little differently, so maybe you'll pick up a new trick or two. How do you make your chocolate chip cookies?
What You Need
Ingredients
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark, but we prefer dark!)
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, very soft
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Equipment
Large bowl
Mixing spoon
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Baking sheet
Cooling racks
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Spray the cookie sheet with nonstick spray or you can use a liner. Silicone liners (like silpats) and parchment paper both work very well.
2. Mix together the two sugars. Be sure to break apart any hard chunks of brown sugar and get the two sugars fully mixed. We prefer dark brown sugar because we think it has a deeper, more caramel flavor, but light brown sugar will make your cookies taste a bit sweeter.
3. Mix the softened butter into the sugar in globs. This helps really incorporate the butter and the sugar.
4. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Crack the eggs directly into the bowl with the butter-sugar mix, and then use your spoon to lightly beat the eggs before stirring them into the butter and sugar.
5. Measure and mix in the vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Mix the batter as much as possible right now. Break apart any remaining clumps and make sure the batter is a consistent color throughout.
If you prefer, you can mix the salt and baking soda with the flour in a separate bowl instead of adding them now. This ensures that these dry ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the batter, but we've never had any trouble adding them in at this point. Honestly, we just prefer to save ourselves an extra bowl to wash!
6. Add the flour all at once. At this point, you want to mix the batter as little as possible to avoid forming too much gluten. Stop mixing as soon as there is no more visible flour on the dough or in the bottom of the bowl.
7. Add the chocolate chips all at once and use a folding motion to incorporate them into the batter.
8. Scoop the batter onto your baking sheet, spacing the balls of dough roughly 2 inches apart. We use a tablespoon and measure out slightly rounded balls - they're about the size of pingpong balls. You can certainly go larger or smaller as you prefer!
9. Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes. Take them out when they look puffy, are set around the edges, and dry to the touch. Let them cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet. As they cool, they will collapse back on themselves.
10. Transfer the cookies to a rack to finish cooling completely. Bake the rest of the cookies in batches.
Additional Notes:
• This recipe makes roughly 40 cookies.
• Mixing cookies by hand, as we like to do, makes your cookies denser and chewier.
• You can certainly make chocolate chip cookies with a hand- or stand-mixer. Your cookies will likely spread out more in the oven, making the edges crispy and the middles tender.
• Cookie dough can be refrigerated for several days before baking. This will actually deepen the caramel flavors in the cookie. Cookie dough can also be frozen for several months.
• This recipe is gratefully adapted from the Original Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.
(Images: Emma Christensen)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elizabeth Apron fro...
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
There were cookies and bread and even cake long before there were electric mixers of any sort. You can make anything without a mixer if you've got a good arm. Which I'm grateful for because my tiny kitchen can't really accommodate a big old beautiful KitchenAid stand mixer, much as I'd enjoy that! (My challenge is learning to mix left-handed to even up the workout.)
This is ridiculous. Never in my life have I actually used a mixer for any baking, much less cookies. The recipe on the other hand, now that sounds delicious!
@alllebasii, why is this ridiculous? We've had several specific questions from readers on baking without mixers, since most cookie recipes these days call for one.
I was going to say something about the negativity, but Faith covered that nicely :)
We didn't have a stand mixer growing up, and I always liked making cookies. Of course, it was an hour-long affair while I mixed mixed mixed!
Then, I used a mixer for the first time a few months ago, when I got to use my boyfriend's parents' mixer. It really makes cookie-making far less of a pain, but it's still completely doable without one.
Maybe one day I'll buy my own stand mixer, but until I know I'll use it a lot, I can't see making that huge purchase.
Thanks for all the tips!!!
My mom taught me to add a tablespoon or two of dark molasses to chocolate chip cookie dough. It gives the cookies a slightly deeper flavor, but you would never know it's from molasses.
I'm actually anti-mixer now, at least for cookies, because if you over-mix (which is easy to do, I found out) the cookies turn out dreadfully. Crispy, flat, and a mess!
We never used a mixer growing up...but then again with 6 kids in the house, it was pretty easy to divide the mixing work!
So my tip is, have your kid do the mixing if you don't have a stand mixer :) Or look at mixing by hand as the calorie burning you need to earn those cookies!!
@heather77 I have got to try that!!
I actually use a stand mixer all the time to make cookies, just for convenience. But now I am switching to this method; I used it last night and the cookies turned out so much chewier. The mixer has been screwing up my cookies all this time - who knew?? :-)
Don't need a tutorial on making chocolate chip cookies, but I am ALWAYS happy for a new excuse to do so! :D Literally my favorite food in the world.
I will likely stick with my electric mixer (hand, not standing) rather than trying it by hand because of carpal tunnel/RSS issues. However, I'm VERY interested in the comments about not overmixing the dough--don't know why, but it never occurred to me that that might be an issue with cookies (like it is with muffins, etc.). I wonder if that's why I often have such inconsistent results with my cookies? Will *definitely* pay attention to that in the future--thanks!
I'm so glad to see this post!! I also have a tiny apartment and NO space for a mixer of any kind. I decided that wasn't going to stand in my way of making baked goods for the holidays. As others have said, there were cakes and cookies before electricity!
My fiancé was most impressed with my gingerbread mixed-by-hand which was the toughest. The trick is to make sure the butter is soft.
Now if only I knew how to live without a food processor or blender. Whisks and spatulas are only so strong. :)
I have no budget for a nice mixer, so everything I do is by hand, but it's nice to see recipes that don't specifically call for a certain appliance (especially a microwave, which I stuffed in a closet for more counter space).
Long creaming makes a big difference. Hand mixers are usually available at any thrift store or yard sale, and well worth the price.
And chilling the dough for a longish time makes a better cookie.
What I really want to know is where these cookies fall on the crispy-cakey-chewey scale. Crispy outsides with a soft center is my favorite... will mixing them for e ver yield me my favorite texture?
I think the key to crispy outside/soft center is seriously underbaking them. My sister swears by underbaking them by like 5 minutes; they're practically still raw inside.
But yeah, this recipe definitely gives chewier (as opposed to cakey) cookies. And the mixing really isn't bad!
For a long time, my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe was from Cook's Illustrated, and it called for melting the butter. Definitely an easy no-mixer cookie batter to stir together!
I didn't have a stand mixer or a food processor for years and years and I was always annoyed that most recipes assumed everyone had these big items.
I like how this post takes us back to the basics. I still do everything by hand when I go up to the family lake cabin.
Best chocolate chip cookies EVER are the Cooks Illustrated Chewy Chocolate Chips. The recipe uses melted butter, which actually helps prevent the gluten from forming. Makes it really easy to mix up a batch of cookies (same temp, about 4 minutes or so longer)
The other really nice thing with this recipe is you can scoop out the cookies, freeze the dough raw, and pop them in the oven frozen -- I make up a batch of dough, freeze and bake off 1/2 dozen at a time so we're not tempted with too many cookies in the house!
I want to second melting butter beforehand. I started doing this years ago because I was living sans-mixer, but discovered that it is by far the best way to make chocolate chip cookies. I now follow Alton Brown's recipe for "The Chewy" almost to the letter (I usually omit the milk, because I rarely have any on hand) and my friends practically fall all over themselves for my chocolate chip cookies. Melted butter = chewy cookies, no mixer required.
I own a kitchen aid and would never get it out to make cookies, unless I'm making cookies for an army!
If your butter is soft enough, you should have no problem mixing a batch of cookie with a bowl and a wooden spoon.
I appreciate this post and some of the comments for helping me understand why my cookies are so often flat and crispy! I'm going to try hand mixing with melted butter for my next batch.
In that cookie article in NYT a year or two ago, the author talks about how chilling the dough for 24 hrs makes for a better cookie. That tip has also made my cookies better. I wait 24 hours to make a batch, then freeze the rest of the dough for fresh cookies any time.
I've been making all different cookies for a long time using this method to rave reviews. To me, it's the only way. I once brought cookies to a pre-school meeting and actually was cornered by a pack of other mothers all demanding to know what my secret to fabulous cookies was. Did I let my eggs come to room temperature? Did I use some combination of butter and shortening? Later it dawned on me that my secret was hand mixing. But I am wondering if my homemade cake would turn out better with a mixer.
Use only unsalted butter for baking to have more control. These cookies will turn out way too salty if you use salted butter AND add salt. Blech.
I also switch the egg and butter ratio, that is, use 1 cup butter (2 sticks) and 1 egg.
I've made these by hand and in a mixer. Both ways are easy and have great results.
I have had this recipe memorized since I was 6 years old (and have been mixing by hand since before then). I love it with salted butter AND salt. In fact it doesn't come out too salty. I like to melt my butter though, and then eat spoonfuls of the melted butter mixed with the sugars and salt. Soooo delicious, my sister and I called it "goodmix". Yes, sometimes mixing with a mixer can over-mix and make for a not so great consistency once the starches start to break down (or whatever is happening).
I never even thought to mix cookies with a mixer...who knew! When a friend asked why hers always turned out so crispy, I thought it was because she used all butter instead of margarine (blasphamous I know). Now, I finally have the real reason!
i have to admit that I switched to the America's Test Kitchen Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and it's an amazing twist on the Toll House recipe.
you can find it on their website, but a sign-up is required
how much is one stick of butter for those readers not living in america?
nevermind, i googled it. its 1/2 C or 8 tablespoons. it would be nice for recipes to be a bit more international friendly.
Super delicious cookies. Thanks for the recipe!
The key is having soft butter. If things don't get mixed well enough, you end up with burnt clumps sitting in pools of melted burned butter in the oven.
Also, substituting different amounts of Crisco for butter (or margarine) makes the cookies thicker.
If pressed for time and with cold, firm butter, use a mixer.
The critical aspect is that hand mixing requires a method be used for combining ingredients as is so concisely described by the authors of this recipe.
On this eve of Thanksgiving, this kitchen-gadget free baker is grateful for recipes tailored to my simple style.
I will check back for more!
I'd like to know what specific causes make what certain effects with cookie dough. I've heard all sorts of different things, I'd like to get one straight answer. Will using melted butter make them more chewy or airy? Does using a hand mixer make them airier/cakier or chewier? Some recipes call for more butter less eggs.. why why why?? What will adding more butter do to the recipe, what will adding less eggs do to the recipe?? -Confused
These cookies bring back memories for me! I made a batch this week and they are already gone!!
We just went through about a year where my daughter (14) made chocolate chip cookies almost every week. Some times she was more attentive to measuring than others and we made a happy discovery which I have since seen confirmed in food blogs-- if you increase the baking soda slightly, your cookie will thin out during baking and result in my favorite-- a thin and very crisp cookie. Normal baking time, you want the cookie to brown but of course not burn. We also decrease the white sugar by 1/4 cup.
I read last fall in the NY Times food section that the longer the dough sits, the better the sugar melds with the butter and flour-- they claim that a dough that sits for a week turns out the best cookie. The problem is we have yet to be able to let dough sit for a week.
Excellent Recipe, I would like to share one Chocolate Chip Cookies - Video Recipe as well. Its everybody's favorite and cookies actually not to sweet since it less sugar, then usual.
Video Recipe: http://youtu.be/i7lTeoBEE88
http://www.youtube.com/StevesEasyCooking
Enjoy!
What does this last step mean
"10. Transfer the cookies to a rack to finish cooling completely".
What do you mean by "rack" here? Do you mean Oven rack? And how to cool them on Oven rack? Do I suppose to turn off the Oven after 9-11 minutes?
Oh' I got it! What do you mean by rack here. Sorry I am very new in the baking field. These cookies are the first ever baking i am doing today. Its in my oven right now! ;)
Thank you the yummy recipe:)
WOW. I finally got around to trying this technique and it really worked. My cookies looked just like the ones in the photo, and they tasted great. They were set on the outside and really soft in the middle...PERFECT. I think I'll try the melted butter too next time, as that would make it very easy to mix. I've also heard of using bread flour to get a really chewy cookie. Thanks so much for this technique!
Please help!i have been trying to make perfect chocolate chip cookies for months.following all the measurements properly.but once the cookies are done and have cool down.they taste like a cake on the inside.i am trying to get my cookies to look chunky and taste like a cookie is suppose to.i dont have a mixer so I use my hand.i use.country crock butter and all purpose flour by pillsbury.please someone give me proper instuctions on how I can make my cookies perfect.thanks!
I just made these and they turned out great! The batter only made two dozen cookies, instead of the 40 the article says, but they are beautiful and tasty.
How my grandmother made a sponge cake without a mixer and baking powder?
these are turning out beautifully. i am so glad i didn't have to drag out and battle w/my mixer!!
Isn't the recipe supposed to have two sticks of butter or 8 ounces??
Could it be the Country Crock? Try using regular butter and not a spread instead.
i followed the recipe exactly (e.g. 1 stick of butter), and my cookies turned out really well. (i get why you'd ask, though: the original 'tollhouse cookie' recipe--and most others--call for 2 sticks of butter...)
p.s this is my 2nd time making this recipe. both times, i helped make the scooping a bit easier. just dampen the tablespoon (or your hand, or whatever type of spoon you're using) with a little bit of water. it helps to bind the batter together. (for me, this batter has been a bit crumbly and doesn't make a playdough-like bowl of cookie dough. it's probably due to having only 1 stick of butter. i gladly take the crumbliness of this dough--with a dab of water to help form the balls--than two sticks of butter!