The Best-Ever, Only-Recipe-You'll-Ever-Need: Chocolate Chip Cookies

In this article series, we usually test the internet’s best recipes by serving up a selection to our highly-qualified "Kitchen Stories Eat Force". But in times of COVID-19 nothing is normal—so we're bringing you a different edition of “The Best-Ever, Only-Recipe-You’ll-Ever-Need".

Like so many people worldwide, the Kitchen Stories editors and chefs are not only working from home, but also spend more time than usual baking. From experiments with sourdough and scones to the all-time favorite: chocolate chip cookies. We asked 5 editors and our chef Johanna for their personal favorite recipes—and now it’s your turn!

Since we can’t ask our experienced testing team (made up of our beloved colleagues) to meet in the office, there’s only one solution: This time, you become a member of the jury. Be open, be critical, but above all, celebrate your love for this timeless American classic with us. Grab one (or more) recipes below, bake them at home, then upload a photo of your creations in the comments, and rate them according to taste, consistency, and looks.

Here are the 6 recipes that the Kitchen Stories team swear by.

Julie’s favorite recipe

“My platonic ideal of a chocolate chip cookie has crisp edges and a soft, chewy center, with rich caramel notes and a subtle nuttiness. Balanced by the slight acidity of high-quality bittersweet chocolate, it’s a winning formula. This is my attempt at creating that perfect cookie, by combining the almighty powers of brown butter, brown sugar, and a high baking temperature, which ensures the proper caramelization of those crisp edges.

Adding to its appeal, there's need to pull out a stand or hand mixer for this recipe—it's stir only! If you have time, I highly recommend resting the dough overnight, which only improves upon the texture and deepens the flavor overall. It's easy to freeze the dough as well: Simply portion it into balls, distribute in a single layer on a baking sheet, and freeze until firm. Transfer the portioned dough to a sealable plastic bag or airtight container to freeze for up to a month, then bake off as your cravings strike!”

25 min

1.3k

Crisp and chewy chocolate chip cookies

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Kristin’s favorite recipe

“This recipe is perfect fo anyone who loves super soft cookies. I personally prefer the center of these cookies to be almost “raw”, but it requires a bit of instinct to achieve this. The best trick is to remove the cookies from the oven when the tops look slightly firm but not fully baked yet – this is just the right moment! After 10 minutes of rest, you can enjoy warm, chewy cookie perfection.

Honestly, it took me a few (sometimes frustrating) test runs to find the best recipe for my taste, but I already noticed in the early stages of my experiments: brown butter is a must! By heating the butter until it browns you gain a beautiful nutty flavor. Another special feature: instead of the classic chocolate chips, I used the Swiss chocolate ‘Toblerone’ for all its almondy-nougat-y goodness!

15 min

505

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies with Toblerone chunks

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Lisa’s favorite recipe with greetings from Australia

"A few years ago, during my studies, I lived with an Australian host family. First, my host mom would bake these cookies, and then it was me (with the help of three young girls) baking this recipe again and again. We never got tired of it! It’s a plus to know your oven well for these cookies to achieve the perfect caramelized edges and bottoms (the brown sugar does the trick here), while the center is still soft and chewy.
The trick is to remove them from the oven when they still look almost raw. That’s why it’s worth staying in the kitchen, close to the oven, to seize the perfect moment! Read more on this below in the instructions. You can find the original recipe, which is the undisputed base for this one, here."

25 min

2.2k

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Devan’s favorite recipe

“Based heavily on the recipe I grew up with—the “famous” recipe printed on the back of every bag of Nestlé’s Toll House semi sweet chocolate chips—I learned a few tricks over the many years I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies and consolidated them all here, in the this “very best” but still “very classic" recipe.

Thanks to Alison Roman, I know salted butter makes for great cookies, so I used that here. Then, thanks to NYT cooking, I know that resting the dough for at least 24 hours gives the dry ingredients time to fully absorb the wet ones—and makes for a chewier cookie, plus the addition of flaky sea salt just highlights the richness and sweetness of the cookies with a light crunch. I’ve also had to swap the classic chips for hand cut chunks, as it’s not the easiest things to find satisfactory chocolate chips here in Berlin—but hey, there’s a major positive side to this, dark, melty pools of chocolate.”

20 min

1.6k

Salty chocolate chunk cookies

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Julia’s favorite recipe

“I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of the classic chocolate chip cookies. I feel like they often need something to cut through the rich sweetness, which is why I love to add some tahini, salty peanut butter, or miso paste to the dough. Instead of eggs and butter, I use margarine and applesauce for this vegan recipe. But my secret ingredients are the aforementioned tahini, plus coconut sugar which add light notes of sesame and caramel. If you can't find coconut sugar, you can substitute it with regular sugar.

Although the dough becomes even better when refrigerated overnight, I feel like the perfect chocolate chip cookies shouldn't require you to wait around for day until you can finally eat them. But if you have a little more time, patience pays off! To me, the perfect chocolate chip cookies are super tender and almost crumble in your mouth when you take a bite—and that's exactly what happens with these!”

20 min

1.5k

Vegan tahini chocolate chip cookies

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Johanna’s favorite recipe

“Like Julia, I have to admit that I am not a big fan of cookies in general. But the task of developing the ‘perfect’ chocolate chip cookies recipe was pretty appealing to me. I did a lot of research and am quite proud of this recipe. The cookies don’t need to rest for a long time and they don’t even need to be refrigerated before baking, which makes this recipe quick, easy, and definitely addictive.

Browned butter and raw cane sugar add notes of caramel to this recipe. As chocolate is the most important ingredient here, I decided to mix two types: one chocolate with 50% cocoa and one with over 70%. I like the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate, as it balances out the rest of the sweetness, as does the sea salt that I sprinkle on the cookies at the end.”

20 min

686

Brown butter chocolate chip cookies

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Do you have another recipe that you think is even better than the ones above? Upload it and don't forget to mention #stayhomekeepcooking in the chef’s note to join the games and make sure that we can find your creation faster.