I’ve seen lots of chocolate chip cookie recipes floating around blogland, all of them claiming to be the best. Some call for melted butter or browned butter while others say melted butter is the root of all evil, at least where cookies are concerned. Some recipes use unsalted butter (I do NOT want to have to go to the store when I make cookies so please let me use normal butter) while other recipes insist you refrigerate the dough for hours or days before baking (not gonna happen at this house – if I want cookies, I want them now. Not in two days). Somebody please just give me a chocolate chip cookie recipe that uses normal ingredients, doesn’t require chilling the dough or letting butter soften on the counter all day, that results in a soft, chewy cookie that will NEVER EVER go flat!
Turns out my mother-in-law gave me that exact recipe 14 years ago. This recipe makes perfect (yup, perfect) cookies every time, even if you happen to nuke the butter a little too long (it happens to all of us). These cookes are soft and delicious and look as good as they taste. This is a big recipe, so you’ll have plenty of cookies to eat and plenty to share. In fact, you’ll probably have enough to freeze some balls of dough, giving you instant cookie gratification another day. This recipe is THE ONE.
You’ll find all your normal cookie ingredients here – butter and vanilla for lots of flavor (although you can make them with margarine in a pinch), plenty of brown sugar (and white as well), flour, soda, and salt. Sounds kind of like that Tollhouse recipe that’s famous for making super flat cookies, right? Well, we’re going to fix the flatness problem with a little bit of wheat flour and a touch of baking powder – you’ll end up with beautiful cookies that are chewy and cakey at the same time.
Now, I know you might not have whole wheat flour in your kitchen right now, but if you buy a 5 lb bag and keep it in the back of your fridge it will stay good a long time and make a lot of batches of cookies.
I recommend using a stand mixer when making these cookies because the dough is quite stiff at the end, plus it’s a huge batch. Back when I didn’t have a stand mixer I’d use a hand mixer for the first few steps, and then just use my hands to finish mixing in all the flour. It takes a few minutes longer, but it works, and it won’t kill your hand mixer.
We make nice sized cookies using this recipe – I roll out balls of dough that are nearly golf ball sized:
The other secret to perfect cookies is the perfect cooktime. I find that golf ball sized balls need to cook for exactly 9 minutes in my oven, and not a second longer. This gets them cooked enough that they aren’t doughy, but not long enough to get crunchy. They will look like the photo below when they are done – tops cracked and just a tiny hint of golden brown. Once you let them cool on the baking sheet for 3-4 minutes they set up enough to transfer beautifully to a cooling rack or plate.
Click here for a printable recipe card. BTW, did I mention this is a big batch? Don’t be scared off by the size – make the dough and scoop it out in balls, then freeze some on a cookie sheet until hard. Place in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer. Then when you want cookies, just take out as many balls of dough as you’d like and let them rest 15-20 minutes on a cookie sheet before baking (you may need to bake them a few minutes longer). I sometimes just bake two in my toaster oven when the kids are asleep…and that’s not one for me and one for my husband 😉
One last note – since it’s hard to perfectly measure flour without weighing it, pay attention to how thick your dough is once it’s all mixed up – if should be quite thick. If it’s not, you run the risk of flat cookies, so go ahead and add up to 1 more cup of either white or wheat flour until it’s nice and thick for perfect cookies.
Perfect (Never Flat) Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 lb Butter softened
- 2 cups Brown Sugar
- 2 cups Sugar
- 5 Eggs
- 3 teaspoons Vanilla
- 2 cups Wheat Flour
- 5 cups White Flour
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
- 4 cups Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
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Instructions
- Preheat oven to 365 degrees.
- Cream butter until smooth, add sugars and cream again.
- Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
- Add flours, salt, baking powder and baking soda, mix until incorporated, then mix in chocolate chips. (A stand mixer is recommended as the dough will be very thick).
- Scoop out dough and round into golf ball sized balls and place on cookie sheets.
- Bake 9-10 minutes until VERY light golden - do not overcook.
- Cool on baking sheet 3-4 minutes before removing to cooling rack.
Want more cookie recipes? Try these:
Mom’s sugar cookies + the best sugar cookie cream cheese frosting
Joel says
I just made this and it was extremely dry. The small balls didn’t ever flatten out and they were in for 10 minutes and didn’t cook very much. I followed the recipe to a T and checked and rechecked it. Anybody know what I might have done wrong or why they might be too dry? I’m new to baking so I am sure that I did something wrong.
Kylie says
Hi, these look amazing and Ivcant wait to make them! 🙂
Can you please tell me what ‘wheat flour’ is? I’m from Australia and we don’t have anything of that name here (and aren’t most flours made from wheat?). My guess is it could be wholemeal flour or self-raising flour. But I don’t want to add the wrong thing!!!
Thanks 🙂
Amy says
Can u use self rising flour? If so do you still add the salt, baking powder and soda?
autumn says
Amy, I’ve never used self rising flour in anything, so I don’t really know. If you give it a try, come back and let us know how it works!
Sarah says
I just made these, and although they smell amazing, they are extremely flat… Not really what I was going for…
autumn says
So sorry! What a disappointment. If you haven’t already chucked the rest of the dough, pull it back out and stir in more flour until the dough is quite thick (it’s hard to measure flour exactly since sometime it’s settled/not settled, so sometimes people can get different results with the same measurements). I added a note in the post that the finished dough should be quite thick and stiff, so if it seems soft when finished mixing you can add up to 1 extra cup white or wheat flour to make sure the cookies don’t end up flat. Sorry again – hope this helps!
Becky says
Please sign me up for your blog – I can’t get link to work