Chocolate Chunk Cookies
This is my all time favourite chocolate chip/chunk cookie recipe ever! It requires only basic pantry ingredients, and no chilling time. Just a simple, straightforward, amazingly delicious recipe for cookies that turn out perfectly every single time! Tender, puffy, and fudgy with perfectly crisp edges just the way I like them. I have searched and tested many chocolate chip recipes and this is finally the one that I love and is consistent with my favs that I use to buy at a whole sale store. You know the ones - perfectly baked and you could eat sleeve after sleeve of them. There are so many varieties of chocolate chip and chunk cookies that I love with so many different qualities to love them for but I wanted to get a recipe on here for my favourite ones for dunking snacking or anytime cookies - I have not met a person who doesn’t love these ones. They are not fall apart tender or overly crumbly or crunchy or flat either - they are just perfectly in between all those extremes and also perfectly buttery and sweet.
Why you will love these chocolate chunk cookies:
- TEXTURE: Thick and chock full of gooey chocolate with slightly crisp edges.
- EASE: No special ingredients, equipment (ie electric mixer), or skills required! This quick and easy recipe makes a lot of cookies in a short amount of time. Perfect for no-fuss bakers who want big flavor without a big mess.
- TIME: Although you can chill the dough on these cookies - you Don’t have to at all - they are perfect without chilling.
- PROS: Easy everyday delightful chocolate chuck cookie recipe or chocolate chip cookie recipe
Chocolate Chunk Cookie Ingredients:
- Butter: I used unsalted butter because it makes it easier to control the amount of salt in recipe.
- White Sugar: You can use granulated white sugar or organic cane sugar.
- Brown sugar: I use light brown sugar in this recipe. The combination of white sugar and brown sugar give these cookies their distinct texture.
- Flour: I recommend using an unbleached, all-purpose flour to make these chocolate chunk cookies. You could definitely make them gluten free with a good quality flour like Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 gluten free baking flour.
- Chocolate Chunks: As you can see from the photos, sometimes I use chocolate chunks, chopped chocolate, or chocolate chips. It doesn’t matter what you use, as long as you use the allotted amount. I find that chopped chocolate melts a lot better and gives you more chocolate puddles in your cookies. I like to use a mixture of bittersweet and either semi sweet or milk chocolate but you could use one or the other.
- Eggs: There are two in this recipe and more notes about adding an extra yolk later in the post if you prefer a chewier cookie. Make sure they are room temperature.
- Baking soda & powder: A little bit of both in this recipe - both acting as leavener.
- Vanilla: A definite must in this recipe - they just won’t be the same without it for that delicious flavour vanilla adds to them
- Extra Add Ins: feel free to toss in some chopped pecans or walnuts if you would like a nuttier version if these cookies
How to make these Chocolate chip or chunk cookies:
Like I said before these don’t require a mixer or any special tools other than a bowl, whisk, wooden spoon or spatula and a cookie scoop. Here are the simple steps involved in making these tasty cookies:
- Brown the butter - this is totally optional - if you don’t want to brown the butter that is totally fine - browning the butter gives these cookies extra flavour but they will still be absolutely delicious made with melted and slightly cooled butter. The melted butter is the secret to this dense, indulgent treat.
- Whisk together you dry ingredients
- Whisk together the melted and room temperature butter with the sugars then add the eggs and vanilla and whisk for a minute until smooth and ribbony
- Mix in the dry ingredients
- Mix in the Chocolate chips/chunks
- Scoop dough onto prepared pans and bake
To Chill or Not to Chill?
This is up to you! I love this recipe because you DO NOT have to chill but if you want to make the dough ahead you definitely can and chill it until you are ready to bake them. Chilling allows more time for the dough to hydrate and results in chewier thicker cookies. Here is the breakdown.
- No chilling: The cookies will spread out a little more and the edges will be crispier.
- Chill for 30 min to 1 hour: The cookies will be little thicker, have a little chew and a lot of crisp, chill the dough for 1 hour.
- Chill for 2+ hours: The cookies will be thicker with less crisp, chill the dough for 2 hours or longer. I appreciate that this cookie recipe works all 3 ways. I don’t chill the first batch I bake but I usually chill the dough between baking each batch and the result is always perfect. You can experiment and see which you like best - you won’t be disappointed whatever you decide.
How to make chewy chocolate chip or chunk cookies:
One of the keys to CHEWY cookies is to use more brown sugar than granulated sugar. The molasses in the brown sugar draws in more moisture, making the cookies thicker, softer, and chewier. For extra chewy cookies, try adding an extra egg yolk to this recipe. You can also replace half or all of the all-purpose flour in this recipe with bread flour for an ultra chewy bite.
How to freeze chocolate chip cookie dough
Portion dough, roll into balls and freeze in a single layer in an airtight container for up to 2 months. You can either let the dough completely defrost overnight in the fridge or for a couple hours at room temperature and bake just as the recipe originally instructed. OR, you can bake from frozen:
- Preheat the oven to about 20 degrees lower than the original recipe temperature.
- Remove however many cookie dough balls of dough you need from the freezer and place on a parchment-lined baking pan.
- Bake the cookies for 2 to 5 minutes longer than the original recipe instructions, or until the cookies are golden at the edges but still slightly ‘wet’ looking at the very center.
Tips and Tricks for these cookies:
- If you’ve never browned butter before, don’t sweat it! It’s so easy. Start off melting the butter; once the butter has completely melted, you’ll continue to cook the butter, on medium heat (or medium-low if your stove top runs hot), until it’s turned a golden brown and smells slightly nutty. Just be sure you stay stove side once the butter has melted; brown butter can turn into burnt butter very fast.
- You will need to bring your browned butter back to room temperature before incorporating it into the recipe. To do this, simply pour the butter into a heatproof bowl and set it aside while you prepare the rest of your ingredients. It doesn’t need to be solid to use in the recipe so it only needs to get to room temperature.
- I recommend using high-quality chocolate chunks for this recipe or chocolate chops. You can buy bars of chocolate and chop them into chunks that is what I usually do. I prefer this method because it allows me to control the size of the chunks and I find the melt better too. Of course, you could also use an equal amount of chocolate chips.
- Don’t over bake! Your cookies should be set at the edges and golden but may still look soft in the center.
- Be sure to allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring baked cookies to a cooling rack or wire rack so they don’t fall apart as your transfer them.
- If you’d like your cookies to look like the ones you see in my photos, and the trick to chop the puddles, press a few chocolate chunks on top of each cookie right after they come out of the oven. You can also sprinkle them with flaky sea salt. Which I always love to do.
- TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: some people find that browning the butter changes the texture of the outcome of these cookies baking - one of the reasons that could be the case is that some of the butter evaporates during the browning processes reducing the amount of butter. Personally this has not happened to me but if you want to prevent this you can transfer the brown butter into a measure cup and just melt and add enough butter to the measuring cup to equal 1 full cup if it has reduced
More Cookies you will love:
Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (16 tablespoons/226 grams) unsalted butter
- 1⅓ cups (267 grams) packed light brown sugar
- ⅓ cup (67 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3¼ cups spooned and leveled all-purpose flour (416 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 8 ounces (227 grams) roughly chopped chocolate (I like to do 6 oz bittersweet or dark chocolate and 2oz semi-sweet chocolate or milk- approx 1½-2 cups total) or chocolate chips
Directions
- Brown butter: In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Continue cooking, stirring often to prevent the bottom from burning, just until the butter starts to sizzle and brown and smell very nutty and delicious -3-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and let cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Combine Dry Ingredients: Whisk together the flour baking, powder, baking soda and salt
- Combine butter & Sugar: Pour butter into large mixing bowl, add the sugars and whisk to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and whisk until ribbony and smooth, about 1 minute.
- Add Dry Ingredients to wet: Add flour mixture to the wet mixture the flour, and stir with a rubber spatula just until a doughforms. Stir in the chopped chocolate chunks
- Scoop out cookie dough: Using a large cookie scoop, scoop out dough roll into cookie dough balls and place on prepared baking sheets with 2-3 inches between them
- Bake: Bake one sheet pan at a time for 13-16 min until tops and edges are lightly golden brown. Allow cookies to cool 5 min on pan and then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Recipe Notes
- Make Ahead: If wrapped tightly in plastic, the dough can be stored in the refrigerator for several days before baking. If too firm to scoop, let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and try again.
- Storage: The cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Recipe adapted from The New Classics cookbook
