Perfect chocolate chip cookies
This is my go-to recipe when I want to make a classic chocolate chip cookie, but feel free to swap the chocolate for any other fillings you fancy. Treat this recipe like a master cookie dough and experiment with your favourite flavours. Ideally make the dough the night before you want to eat the cookies.
Ingredients
- 250g/9oz plain flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ½ tsp sea salt flakes, plus extra for sprinkling
- 110g/3¾oz unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
- 110g/3¾oz light brown sugar
- 110g/3¾oz caster sugar
- 1 large free-range egg
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 250g/9oz chocolate (see tip)
Method
To make the cookie dough, whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl. Place the butter and sugars in a separate large bowl and, using an electric hand-held mixer, beat together for about 4–5 minutes until light. Add the egg, beating until fully combined, then briefly mix in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture and mix just until a dough is formed. Add the chocolate and mix until evenly distributed.
Chill the dough for 24–48 hours before baking. This process helps the flour to hydrate and makes for a better tasting cookie that is more likely to caramelise as it bakes. You can skip this process but the dough will still need refrigerating for a few hours so that it can be rolled into balls and will bake without spreading too much.
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and line two baking trays with baking paper. Use your hands or an ice cream scoop to form balls of dough (about 60–70g/2¼–2½oz per cookie). Sprinkle with a little sea salt and place onto the prepared baking trays, leaving 2.5–5cm/1–2in between each cookie.
Bake, in batches of six, for about 16–18 minutes or until golden around the edges but still slightly pale in the middle. Leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve immediately or keep in a sealed container for up to 4 days.
Recipe Tips
When it comes to the chocolate you use in these cookies, you could go old school and use chips, but my preference would be either to roughly chop a bar or use chocolate that comes in discs (these options are often better quality and give the cookies lovely varied texture and shape). A good rule is to simply use a chocolate you love the flavour of!
You can be relatively cavalier and experimental when it comes to chucking things into this cookie dough, but be aware that for this recipe 250g/9oz of additional ingredients is the limit – anything above this will start to affect the texture and bake of the cookie.
The balls of dough can also be frozen for a few months. Simply place the dough balls onto a lined tray and pop in the freezer for an hour or so, until hardened. Once frozen, transfer the balls into a plastic sealable box or ziplock bag. Freezing on the tray first means the dough balls won’t stick to each other. When you fancy baking a cookie or two, simply bake as above adding a minute or so onto the baking time.
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