Gemma's Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • Don’t: Use room temperature butter. Do: Fully melt your butter. This will affect the end results of your cookie.
  • Don’t: Don’t use all white sugar. Do: Add brown sugar for more of a caramel flavor, moisture, and a gooey chewy cookie. See my explanation as to why above in this article.
  • Don’t: Add all your dry ingredients straight into the wet all at once. Do: Mix dry ingredients separately in a bowl before adding to the wet. This ensures your raising agent and salt are thoroughly combined before mixing up your dough.
  • Don’t: Use baking powder. Do: Use baking soda. Baking powder gives you a cakier cookie and not a gooey, doughier center like the way baking soda does.
  • Don’t: Skip the vanilla. Think of vanilla as a seasoning. It helps bring out the flavor of the other ingredients and also pairs really well with dark chocolate.
  • Don’t: Use chocolate chips in your cookies. Do: Use a bar of chocolate and chop that. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers and they will melt and don’t pool like regular chocolate. Also, the quality of chocolate for chips sometimes is not as good as a bar where you can see the cocoa.
  • Don’t: Bake off your dough straight away. Do: Chill your dough. Chilling the dough for at least 1-hour will means the dough will be easier to work with and your cookies won’t spread as much when baking. Chill your dough for a few hours, even days are really recommended for a better texture but also a better-flavored cookie. This is called ‘aging’ your dough.
  • Do: Scoop the dough to the measurement I give in the recipe. The bake time is based on the size of the dough. For example, too small a ball of dough and your cookies will overbake in the time I gave for a bigger ball of dough leaving you with a crisp, harder cookie with no doughy center.
  • Don’t: Flatten the cookie. Do: Leave the round scoop as it is. This thick ball will slowly melt giving your crips outside but the gooey center. Bake time (like above) is affected if you flatten your cookie beforehand rather than letting it slowly melt itself giving you a thick, soft center.
  • Don’t: Once baked, don’t just set your baked cookies over to the side to cool down. Do: Pan Bang! Banging your baking pan on a hard countertop immediately once your cookie comes from the oven with help give you a lovely crinkle on top of your cookie but it will also ‘pool’ the chocolate so it almost bursts in your cookie. author: Gemma Stafford source: https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/best-ever-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (8oz/225g) butter

  • 1¼ cups (7 1/2oz/212g) light brown sugar

  • ¾ cup (6oz/170g) white granulated/caster sugar

  • 2½ cups (12 1/2oz/354g) all-purpose flour/plain flour

  • 1½ teaspoon salt

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 2 large eggs*

  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract ((optional, but encouraged))

  • 2 cups (12oz/340g) bittersweet chocolate chunks

Directions

  • Whisk the flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside.

  • In a separate large bowl melt the butter. Add in both white and brown sugars and whisk vigorously for about 1 minute.

  • Whisk in the eggs one at a time into the sugar mixture and whisk until well combined. Lastly stir in the vanilla.

  • {“Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir with the spatula to fully combine. Stir in the chopped chocolate. The dough will be soft but DON'T add more flour. It needs to be chilled now to firm up.IMPORTANT NOTE”=>”Chill the dough for a minimum of 1 hour. This will make it easier to scoop and your cookies will keep their shape better while baking. (This dough can be made and kept in the fridge for 7 days. The dough also freezes really well)”}

  • Scoop 14-15 balls of cookie dough (1/4 cup/100g each) and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Leave some space between the cookies as they spread out during baking.

  • Bake the cookies at 375°F (190°C) for about 14-15 minutes roughly, or until the edges are set and the cookie is beginning to turn golden brown throughout, but still doughy in the middle. It is really important you don't over-bake these cookies otherwise they won't be soft in the middle. 

  • Once out of the oven bang the hot pan on the counter a few times to create crinkles on top of the cookie (see tips). Let cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store them at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.