Bakery-Inspired Chocolate Chip Cookies
We’ve made giant and mini chocolate chip cookies, thin & crispy chocolate chip cookies, and even the WORST chocolate chip cookies… but these thick chocolate chip cookies are a first! Another gourmet-style cookie, these super thick and fat cookies are tender, soft, melt-in-your mouth, and oh-so-chocolatey. They’re the sort you’d spy behind bakery glass and just wouldn’t be able to resist ordering one… or a dozen. But before we get started, it’s so important that I note that while they are thick, these cookies are NOT cakey (dry, cakey cookies are unwelcome here!). In order to achieve this tricky balance of melt-in-your-mouth-ness AND pillowy thickness, it’s very important you don’t accidentally overmeasure your flour, or your cookies could actually end up cakey. I recommend using a kitchen scale to be safe, but if you don’t have one of those (you should really get one), check out my post on how to (properly) measure flour!
What You Need
Most of these ingredients will be pretty familiar, but let’s chat about a few that can be customized to your liking:
Brown sugar. You can use either light or dark brown sugar, or do what I do and use equal parts of each. Personally, I find that using all dark brown sugar yields a cookie that’s just a bit too rich. Cake flour. For someone who doesn’t stand for cakey cookies, I’ve found cake flour has made its way into an awful lot of my cookie recipes, recently. From my blueberry muffin cookies and coffee cake cookies to my Lofthouse cookies, I’ve found that, while not a typical cookie ingredient, cake flour contributes to the thick, tender texture we’re going for here. It creates a fine crumb that really does melt in your mouth. You can substitute all-purpose flour (instructions below), but the texture won’t be the same. Vanilla extract. I love using my homemade vanilla extract in these cookies. By the way… if you start making a batch of homemade vanilla now, it will be ready just in time for holiday baking 😉 Chocolate. Chocolate chips work great (opt for semisweet), but I really enjoy using 8-10 oz of chopped dark chocolate or semisweet chocolate bars. The bars just melt nicer and leave varying sizes of chocolate throughout the dough. Cornstarch. Okay, this one isn’t customizable or negotiable, but it is highly important and therefore worth mentioning! Cornstarch helps with the thickness of these cookies (it prevents them from spreading too much) and their melt-in-your-mouth (I have repeated this phrase so often only because it is so relevant, I promise) tenderness. Don’t skip it!
SAM’S TIP: Add the dry ingredients gradually! If you add the flour all at once, you will have a tough time mixing everything together and your dough will be dryer and more difficult to work with than necessary (and this is already a stiff dough). Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies
SAM’S TIP: I use an ice cream scoop for this dough since we are going for huge chocolate chip cookies. You can always drop the dough right on the baking sheet, but I like to roll mine into smooth balls to make them more uniform first. Love these cookies? Try my thick peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies next! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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