THE ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE

These guys right here.... 

These guys right here.... 

The famous amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe is finally here!!!!! (Flips and dancing emojis here). First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for tagging me in every cookie recipe you saw, giving me suggestions, and encouraging me to keep going even when the going got tough and the pants got tight. I couldn't have done this without you. I also want to thank every taste tester who came by to taste the overly sweet, way too flat, and just plain boring cookies. I hope this recipe will make up for it. (Just kidding I already know it makes up for it.) This recipe is about two years in the making but a couple of you are going to be very disappointed. Not because it won’t be the best cookie you ever tasted. No, I’m actually willing to put money on the fact that it’s going to be one of the best mouthfuls you ever had. No, a couple of you are going to be like, this recipe is really kind of complicated. Sadly, yes, it is. But it's worth it. Really. Also, some people might say, why is this recipe so dairy? Dairy? What? What does that even mean?

Well, when you are counting milk products in this recipe there is butter, yes the real full fat butter stuff not vegan butter and not margarine sticks and G-d not Crisco. Then there is milk powder. Milk powder?!!! What does that even mean? This isn’t what I signed up for at alllll!

Chill out, its all good. Its super easy to find and even comes in cholov yisroel. It’s a game changer people. Thanks to the all-knowing genius Christina Tosi (you can read about her here) I put this in the cookies to give them the most amazing caramelized extra yummy flavor- that’s a technical term. So that’s in there. And speaking of caramel, there’s also butterscotch sauce in there. Yea, I went there. It’s done. It gives the cookie everything its been missing all these years.

Can this recipe be made pareve (non dairy)? I bet that is the number one question I will be getting. I already know it. I’ve lain awake at night thinking about it. Here’s what I have decided to answer.

I have no clue. Not even a little bit.

I mean technically your welcome to use vegan butter, coffee creamer powder and pareve butterscotch sauce in this recipe but full warning that it may taste gross. I haven’t gotten up to testing that yet. I only just finished testing this recipe.

One of my favorite testers. Back when I was using chocolate chunks- so sad they just don't work with the cookie.  

One of my favorite testers. Back when I was using chocolate chunks- so sad they just don't work with the cookie.  

About testing this recipe. So about 2 years ago when I became dissatisfied with every chocolate chip cookie recipe I ever had before I began a search for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. A couple of times I would find something satisfactory but it would always be missing something. What is the perfect cookie? Well, to me its crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside with the perfect amount of melty chocolate chips running through it. And the flavor, don’t get me started on the flavor. It should be that perfect caramelized milky buttery flavor, sweet with the perfect amount of salty and most of all it should be an experience. It should evoke all the best memories of cookies when you were a kid and taste how you remember them tasting, not how they actually taste. (You know what I mean? Like Girl Scout cookies? They taste so much better in your head then in real life). They should require a moment of silence as you savor it. It should be mind blowingly awesome and you should think of nothing else but how intensely amazing these cookies are and how badly you need a cup of milk.

It’s a lot to expect of a cookie. But then again, why should what you eat be anything short of perfect? So about 6 months ago I gave up trying out other peoples recipes. It was just getting depressing. I decided to look into the science of ingredients and figure out how things work to make that perfect cookie. Then after a ton of trail and error here’s what I found. Ill save you the boring science stuff though. I used my own original cookie recipe as a base because I loved the texture and worked up from there.

I didn’t want to use Crisco just cause it’s totally gross to me- so it was going to be all butter as a base

Sugars- well white sugar made the original recipe super sweet and white so I wanted to cut back on it

Testing cookies with my princess

Testing cookies with my princess

Light brown sugar deepened the butterscotch flavor but using too much dark brown sugar hindered the sweetness. So I would use the most light brown sugar, less white sugar and a little bit of dark brown sugar just to curb it a little bit and give it some depth. Took about 6 tries to get this right…

The next think to tackle was the flour ratio. See, I loved the actual texture of the cookie but it was still too flat. Thanks to @lilmisscakes I added some cornstarch to the dough, which mimicked the way cake flour, gives things a fluffier texture. Problem solved.

I wanted more of a butterscotch flavor so the best way to do that seemed to literally add butterscotch into the cookie. To save time looking for a good brand I used this recipe to make my own.

Salt was a big issue- it doesn’t seem like it would be cause like a pinch usually does it but this recipe has a lot of sugar and it needs a balance. After about 8 tries I found that 2 tsp. was the magic number plus a sprinkle of flaky salt on top.

Unedited Chewy Chocolatey Goodness

Unedited Chewy Chocolatey Goodness

Then came the chocolate chips- so I tried using dark chocolate feves and chopped chocolate cause you know I’m a stickler for good quality stuff but truth was it just didn’t fit. The chocolate was overwhelming. So I went back to simple bittersweet chocolate chips and was thrilled with the result.

Baking times and temperatures was probably the most complex thing for; me to master. I have a tiny little convection oven that barely fits a 9x13 as my dairy oven. Times and temperatures are always a little off. When I finally found the right oven to work in I knew I wanted the temperature above 356 degrees- because that is the temperature that sugar caramelizes in baking. But lower than 375 where the tops of the cookies burn but the middles are still raw (bonus finding- cooking the cookies at 450 for 5-8 minutes toasts the outside but makes the middle super soft and molten- its epic! But doesn’t last long at all). So 360 it was and anywhere between 12-15 minutes is the golden time.

The trouble came when I tasted the cookies right after making them and they tasted kind of, well separate. Like the dough hadn’t come together yet. Kind of powdery in a weird way. So, I left half of it in the fridge and over the next 96 hours I would bake a batch of cookies every 12 hours. Turns out 26-48 hours is the sweet spot for cookie making. Everything comes together and it’s just perfect! After that isn't too bad either.

Gah! I can't even  

Gah! I can't even  

Enough talk! Y’all waited long enough! Here’s the recipe!!

Please do not share this recipe as your own. Use this link to give credit where it’s due.

 

1 cup butter - 2 sticks 

1 cup light brown sugar 

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

Cream these together until creamy and fluffy - about 2-3 minutes (Do not be tempted to overcream the butter, the resulting cookies will be flatter)

3 tbsp butterscotch sauce* 

2 large eggs

1.5 tsp vanilla

Mix with butter mixture until combined- 2 minutes

Then combine: 

3 cups flour

1/4 cup milk powder

1/4 cup corn starch

1.5 tsp baking soda

2 tsp kosher salt

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix to combine about 2 minutes

Add 9 oz chocolate chips, reserve some for decorating the tops.

Allow the dough to rest in a ziplock bag or well covered in the refrigerator for AT LEAST 24 hours up to 96 hours (the sweet spot for cookies is somewhere between 26-48 hours)

Preheat the oven to 360 F

Prepare a greased metal sheet pan. Do not use parchment paper. 

Form the cookies using a 2 inch scooper- do not press down 

Sprinkle some flaky sea salt on top and more chocolate chips if you wish

Bake for 12-16 minutes or until golden brown 

Rotate the pan halfway through the baking process 

Cool for 5 minutes on a sheet pan before transferring them to cool on a wire rack

Store in a closed container for up to one week

Dough before it's baked can last for about 3 months, I would keep it for a year in deep freeze but thats just me being lazy. This recipe does not double well. 

*here's the butterscotch sauce recipe I used if you can't find any to buy. 

Update: some people said they were having trouble accessing the link for butterscotch so here's the recipe with creds to simply recipes. 

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
  • ¾ cup heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Method

Butterscotch takes about a half an hour to make, from start to finish.

1 First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go - the cream and the brown sugar next to the pan, measured and waiting. Making butterscotch is a fast process that cannot wait for hunting around for ingredients.

2 In a heavy bottomed stainless steel 2 quart saucepan, melt butter over low to medium heat. Just before butter is melted, add all dark brown sugar at once and stir with wooden spoon until sugar is uniformly wet.

3 Stir infrequently until mixture goes from looking grainy to molten lava. Make sure to get into the corners of your pot, and watch closely to notice how the mixture changes. It will take about 3 to 5 minutes.

4 Right before you add the cream, the caramelizing brown sugar will begin to look and feel more like liquid and less like thick wet sand.

5 At this point add all the cream at once and replace your spoon with a whisk. Lower heat a little and whisk cream into mixture. When liquid is uniform, turn heat back to medium and whisk every few minutes for a total of 10 minutes.

6 After liquid has been boiling on the stove for its 10 minutes, turn heat off and let rest for a minute or two before transferring into a heatproof storage vessel. (I prefer a stainless steel or glass bowl.) Cool to room temperature.

7 When butterscotch liquid is room temperature, take a small taste. It's important to know what cooked brown sugar and butter tastes like, and what happens when transforming that flat sweetness into real butterscotch flavor. Whisk in half the salt and vanilla extract. Taste again. Add more salt and vanilla extract until the marvelous taste of real butterscotch is achieved.

Chill butterscotch sauce in a non-reactive container with a tightly fitting lid only after sauce has chilled completely. It will keep for one month refrigerated, that is if you can keep from eating it all the moment it has cooled down and been seasoned to your liking.

Read more: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_butterscotch/#ixzz3uFTtnXdl

Please feel free to ask questions below! Also, if any of you make these, send me reviews and pictures! You will literally make my day! 

Here's what it looks like when it's flash baked at 450F. Now that is excellent.  

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