The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, Bakery Style (2024)

Chocolate Chip Cookies, in action

bakery-style Chocolate Chip Cookies

It seems every baker, cookie maker, and sweet tooth owner is on an unending quest to discover the best ever chocolate chip cookie.

I’ve made hundreds of these Soft Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies in my baking lifetime, as they are my easy go-to favorite, as they stay soft forever. I’ve also shared the this extra special Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie that is perfection for birthdays and celebrations.

Today, the spotlight is on these thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies – they are everything a bakery style chocolate chip cookie should be. We’ve gifted them, shared, them, and even frozen them. Even chocolate chip cookie connoisseurs will ask you for this recipe.

Ingredients for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I saw these thick, chewy chocolate chip cookies for the umpteenth time in my America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, I finally went to town and floured up, because it’s naturally implied that these chocolate chip cookies would most certainly be amazing.

Here are the key ingredients you’ll need:

• All purpose flour – please measure very carefully, as it’s a make-or-break thing when it comes to the perfect chocolate chip cookies. We explain the scoop and level method of measuring here.
• Baking soda is the leavening agent that will help your cookies rise – we highly recommend using a new box every season.
• Salted butter gives the cookies extra flavor; if you opt for unsalted butter, use a pinch more table salt.
• Light brown sugar should be tightly packed. Seriously, pack it down when measuring. Please use fresh brown sugar that has not lost any moisture.
• Adding an extra egg yolk to the doughenables the batter to hold extra liquid and sugar, for a chewy texture.
• Pure vanilla is undeniably cleaner and richer in flavor than imitation vanilla extracts.
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips – we pour 2 whole cups into these cookies; don’t skimp!

Tips for Perfect chocolate chip cookies

These Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies not only taste like they came from a chocolate chip cookie chef (my dream job) but they also look like they emerged from a bakery. They’re beautifully uneven and cracked on top, giving them that rustic bakery cookie appearance we usually don’t achieve at home.Pssst…there’s actually an art to that.

• Always measure ingredients carefully and use the scoop/level method to measure flour: use measuring cup to gently scoop flour into cup. Use flat edge of butter knife to gently scrape off excess from the top of cup.
• Dry measuring cups meant for measuring dry ingredients such as flour are much more accurate than a liquid measuring cup. Glass Pyrex type measuring cups with extra space on top are meant for liquids.
• Don’t stop short with the butter/sugar mixing; give it the full 2 minutes or more. Set a timer if you’re tempted to speed through this. It takes time for enough air to get mixed into the butter/sugar until fluffy. It makes all the difference!
• Regarding brown sugar, be sure to pack it down tightly when measuring. Feel free to pound it down with your fist. Also, be sure brown sugar is fresh and has not lost any of its original moisture.
• Don’t over-mix the dough, as it can become tougher as it gets overworked. Do chill the cookie dough, as it helps cookies retain shape and also helps with final tip below.
• The secret to chocolate chip cookies that look like they came from your favorite bakery, with nicely cracked tops: divide cookie dough into 1.5 inch balls. Pull one dough ball apart into two equal halves. Rotate the halves so their jagged surfaces face up and rejoin the halves together gently to form a single ball, leaving the top surface jagged and uneven. No forming of smooth cookie dough balls here. Uneven tops are the name of the game.

Freezing chocolate chip cookies

These cookies are pure perfection while fresh and warm, while the plentiful chocolate chips are an ooey-gooey melted haven. That said, As long as you don’t over bake them, they will reward you by remaining chewy for a couple of days. They can easily be refreshed by heating them for a few seconds in the microwave to regain their sensational gooeyness.

The dough for these Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies can be made ahead of time, wrapped, and chilled until ready for baking. We recommend freezing the unbaked dough in a large dough ball, or freeze after dividing into 1.5 inch cookie dough balls. If you want the bakery style look, form jagged tops (described in recipe card) after defrosting the dough balls.

Baked cookies can also be frozen; always let them cool completely before storing them in an airtight container. Microwave defrosted cookies a few seconds for that fresh-out-of-the-oven experience.

It’s a full on eyes-closed, big smile, and melty-chocolate-on-lips kind of encounter.

More to Bake and Eat

• Bakery Style Double Chocolate Cookies – these are for all the serious chocoholics in the crowd. They are incredibly satisfying.
• Brown Sugar Cookies, Soft and Chewy – these are actually our family’s favorite anytime cookie. They’re easy enough for kids to help with.
• Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – all the oatmeal cookie lovers will rave over these toothsome treats.
• 25 Best Holiday Cookies – here’s our collection of cookies that make the cut every holiday season.