Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bakery-style cookies with crisp edges, chewy middles, and puddles of chocolate — no dough chilling required, though it makes them even better.
Everyone needs one chocolate chip cookie recipe they can make on autopilot. This is ours: crisp at the rim, chewy in the middle, with chopped chocolate instead of chips so the chocolate spreads into thin layers through the dough. You can bake them the moment the dough comes together, or chill it overnight for deeper butterscotch flavor.
Cookies spreading into puddles? It's almost always warm butter or too little flour — see our guide on how to measure flour correctly. Storing them so they stay chewy is its own small science; we wrote up how to store homemade cookies too.
Recipe
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Reliable bakery-style chocolate chip cookies: crisp edges, chewy centers, puddles of chopped chocolate, flaky salt on top.
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- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Total
- 27 min
- Servings
- 24
- Yield
- 24 cookies
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Course
- Dessert
- Cuisine
- American
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (softened but cool)
- 1 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 10 oz semisweet chocolate (chopped)
- flaky sea salt (for topping)
Equipment
- Baking sheets
- Parchment paper
- Cookie scoop (3 tbsp)
Instructions
Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment.
Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.
Beat the butter and both sugars 2–3 minutes until creamy and lightened. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
Stir in the flour mixture just until no dry streaks remain, then fold in the chopped chocolate.
Scoop 3-tablespoon balls onto the sheets, 3 inches apart. Sprinkle with flaky salt.
Tip: For picture-perfect cookies, press a few extra chocolate shards on top of each ball.
Bake 11–13 minutes until the edges are golden but centers look slightly underdone. Cool on the sheet 10 minutes.
Storage
Airtight at room temperature up to 4 days — add a slice of sandwich bread to the container to keep them soft.
Freezing
Freeze scooped dough balls solid, then bag them; bake from frozen with 2 extra minutes. Up to 3 months.
Reheating
8–10 seconds in the microwave brings back the just-baked gooeyness.
Substitutions
- Dark brown sugar: Light brown sugar — slightly less molasses depth, same texture.
Common mistakes
- Butter too warm — It should dent with light pressure, not glisten. Warm butter equals flat cookies.
- Baking until golden all over — Pull them when the edges are set but centers still look underdone — they finish on the sheet.
Nutrition (per serving)
| Fat (g) | 10 |
|---|---|
| Sugar (g) | 18 |
| Sodium (mg) | 150 |
| Protein (g) | 2 |
| Calories | 210 |
| Saturated fat (g) | 6 |
| Carbs (g) | 28 |
Nutrition information is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients.
From our test kitchen
Tested at 350°F and 375°F: the hotter oven gave better edge contrast with the same chewy center.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to chill the dough?
No — these bake well immediately. Chilling 24 hours deepens the flavor and gives a slightly thicker cookie, so do it when you can plan ahead.
Chips or chopped chocolate?
Chopped bar chocolate melts into layers and pools; chips hold their shape. Both work — see our chocolate buying guide for good baking bars.
Maya is Serenity Sweets' recipe tester and resident cookie obsessive. She re-bakes every recipe in a different oven with supermarket ingredients to make sure the instructions survive contact with a real kitchen.
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Helpful baking guides
Guide
How to Store Homemade Cookies So They Stay Fresh
Chewy cookies and crisp cookies need opposite storage. How to keep each kind at its best, plus freezing dough vs freezing baked cookies.
Guide
The Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Desserts
Everything on Serenity Sweets about baking with chocolate in one place: the recipes, the buying guide, and the techniques that make chocolate desserts taste deeper.