Chocolate Chunk Cookies — These chocolate chunk cookies are made with both chocolate chunks AND chips. These are hands down the BEST chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made!
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Best Ever Cookies … with Chocolate Chunks!
I’ve been on the quest to find the perfect end-all be-all chocolate chip cookie recipe. And this recipe is as close as I’ve come.
These chunky chocolate chip cookies are so soft, similar to Keebler Soft-Batch Cookies, minus the store-bought taste. And they bake up with the perfect height; not too thick or overly domed and not too thin like flat pancakes.
I stuffed these cookies to the max with both chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. As the cookies bake, the chips retain their shape more than the chunks, which turn into oozing luxurious puddles.
What Makes These Chocolate Chunk Cookies “The Best?”
If you’re looking for an easy, straightforward, chocolate chunk cookie recipe that yields fantastic results, I encourage you to give this one a try. These cookies are as close to my definition of The Perfect Cookie as I’ve come and here are the highlights why I love the recipe:
- No two-day waiting period between making the dough and baking the cookies — and dough chilling is optional.
- No egg plus yolk situation to contend with so nothing is wasted.
- The overall batch size is manageable, about two dozen.
- Each cookie is decent-sized, but not ginormous.
- The cookies get softer, not harder or drier, the next day and continue to stay soft for up to a week.
- The holy grail of cookie qualities are present — thick, puffy, soft, and chewy.
And let’s not forget, there are two kinds of chocolate in every bite! The more the merrier.
Ingredients in Chocolate Chunk Cookies
To make this chocolate chunk cookie recipe, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Bread flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Bittersweet chocolate
How to Make Chocolate Chunk Cookies
The double chocolate chunk cookies come together quickly, although you do have to chill the dough before baking it (no way around it, sorry!). Let’s review how the cookies loaded with chocolate chunks are prepared:
- Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla, then stir in the dry ingredients.
- Add the chocolate chunks and chips last, then scoop the dough into balls.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough balls for about 2 hours before baking them.
- Bake until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center.
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
How Long Should You Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I recommend baking 8 to 9 minutes, and not more than 10 minutes, period. I found given the size of my dough mounds, my oven, and my taste preferences, 9 minutes is the magic number for me. Even though the centers will seem underdone at 8 or 9 minutes, as the cookies cool out of the oven, they firm up.
If you wait to pull the cookies until they look done, as they cool they will set up far too firm and crumbly and won’t stay soft and chewy. Don’t overbake.
Cookie Baking FAQs
I used two types of flour in these chocolate chunk cookies, both bread and all-purpose flour. The original recipe just calls for all-purpose but because bread flour adds extra chewiness and since my dream cookie is one with a high degree of chewiness, I utilized a combination of bread flour and all-purpose.
If you don’t have bread flour, solely using all-purpose is fine. Your cookies may not be quite as chewy nor as thick, since bread flour also lends increased structure to baked goods, but they’ll still be plenty good.
Unbaked cookie dough may be refrigerated for up to 5 days prior to baking it, or frozen for up to 3 months
The chewiness comes from the bread flour in this particular recipe (see above for my answer to that FAQ).
To create a soft cookie, you need to use larger amounts of dough. I used about 2.25 ounces dough per cookie. I weighed each mound of dough, but if you don’t have a scale or don’t want to be bothered, that translates to two heaping tablespoons of dough, and with the chocolate pieces dangling off, possibly 3 tablespoons.
I learned when I made those cookies that a larger mass of dough allows the cookie center to remain soft and tender since it never gets the chance to dry out or overbake while the edges crisp up.
I chilled the cookie dough before baking it and always advocate doing so because as dough chills, the flavors marry and cold dough spreads less during baking, resulting in puffier and thicker cookies.
Brown sugar helps cookies stay softer and gives them a richer flavor profile since brown sugar has more depth of flavor than granulated sugar does. Ironically, cookies made with more brown than granulated sugar become softer over time as they absorb atmospheric moisture, rather than drying out.
Where this chocolate chunk cookie recipe veers way off the path compared to any other cookie recipe I’ve ever tried is that it uses cornstarch, and just two mere teaspoons, but enough to work its softening magic. Cornstarch is not only a softening agent, but it’s also a thickening agent. Just as it thickens gravy or soup, it helps to create thick and puffy cookies.
Nope! You may use one or the other, if desired. I was going to make the cookies exclusively using semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I enjoy having a variety of textures and flavors in my cookies, especially when those textures and flavors are of the chocolate variety. I opted to use both semi-sweet chocolate chips and bittersweet chocolate chunks, courtesy of a Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar.
Recipe Variations to Try
It’s easy to customize this recipe for chocolate chip chunk cookies! You may add up to 12 ounces (roughly 2 cups, but no more) of mix-ins, such as:
- Chopped nuts
- White chocolate chips
- Butterscotch chips
- Diced candy bar pieces
- Dried fruit
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Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed (I use light)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup bread flour or all-purpose flour*, See Notes
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 6 ounces 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 6 ounces bittersweet or dark baking chocolate, chopped into bite-sized chunks (I use Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar)
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the sugars and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flours, corn starch, baking soda, salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add the chocolate chips and chunks, and either fold in by hand or beat for a few seconds on low speed.
- Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop, form heaping mounds weighing 2 1/4-ounces each (weighed on a scale, which is approximately a scant 1/4-cup measure. Dough mounds will look large for their weight because there’s lots of chocolate pieces adding bulk).
- Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plasticwrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 5 days.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray. Place dough mounds on the baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart; I bake 8 cookies per sheet.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center, noting the tops will not be browned and will be pale. Do not cook longer than ten minutes as cookies will darken and firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked for 8 minutes, rotated once midway through baking, and have chewy edges with soft pillowy centers).
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- *Edited to add May 2013 – I prefer these cookies using exclusively all-purpose flour and have stopped baking them with a combination of all-purpose and bread flour. I am leaving the recipe up as I wrote it back in 2012, but note that I prefer all-purpose because the cookies are softer, more tender, and more moist.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
You can check out all of my chocolate chip cookie recipes HERE.
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When I made these they didn’t flatten out like regular cookies when they were baked. I’m not sure what I did wrong!
They don’t flatten or spread tons if you bake with properly chilled dough. You could have also slightly over-measured your flour (always use a light hand and don’t compact it) and that could be the culprit, too. But they don’t sound ‘wrong’ to me!
I made these today & they turned out super crumbly! I don’t understand what I missed/did wrong, but they aren’t like cookies at all. :(
Ive never had that happen. Did you forget any ingredients? Measure your butter properly? Cream properly? Add too much flour or baking soda? Overbake? Not sure but haven’t ever heard that from readers but sorry it happened to you.
These look so delicious in the pictures, and I’ve made them successfully once, so I know they’re just about the best chocolate chip cookies in existence!
But–am I doing something wrong? I’ve made these a few more times and continually find that the cookies don’t spread AT ALL in the oven. Should I be forming them into tightly packed balls, or just kind of spooning blobs onto the cookie sheet?
Mine don’t spread that much either. I pack them into very tight ‘golf balls’, then I flatten the balls about halfway down, then chill them like that. Then bake. Blobs never work well for me and they look super sloppy too :)
Glad you love the cookies!
Ohhhhhhh, flattening them sounds like it would do the trick. Thanks for the update!! Just took a batch out of the oven (unflattened) and they’re delicious anyway.
Yes you have to flatten them slightly and just how much will depend on your oven, preferences, etc. So just play around a little!
I made these yesterday, left the dough in the fridge for 3 hours (as long as I could wait) and they are amazing. I love cookies that are overflowing with chocolate. Thanks Averie
Rosemary @anitalianinmykitchen
Oh I’m so glad to hear that you love them & yes, they ARE overflowing with chocolate, always a good thing :)
Made these earlier in the week and they were such a hit! Now since I’m in New England and snowed in I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make them again. Next up I want to try the pudding M&Ms one. Thank you for the best recipes Averie!
Thanks for trying these a few times! And the M&M Pudding cookies are so good! I hope you get to try them!
SO good. Made these exactly how the recipe says and served them to our guests, big hit! Everyone loved them and asked how I made them so perfect! I want to make another batch right now! :)
Thank you for following the recipe exactly & LMK it worked perfectly for you & that you totally impressed your guests! Awesome!
…MMM those looks delicious. I love chocolate chip cookies too! :-) Especially when they are warm right from the oven.
Made these over the weekend and added macadamia nuts and coconut. After lots of sad looking chocolate chip cookies in all my baking, these were AWESOME and I think I’ll be using it as my cookie base in the future.
Thanks for trying them and the awesome compliments and that it may become your main CCC base! Please see this post and do a tastetest, too :)
I baked these Sunday (exclusively all purpose flour) and turned out delicious!!!! Now I gotta remake them ASAP after chilling dough! Didn’t think these could get better until I read comments!
I’m glad to hear they turned out delish!! Thanks for LMK! :)
Hi ! i want to make these cookies for a party but instead of making them into dough balls before i chill them can i just chill the dough as a big log ?
I haven’t tried it that way, but if you do, LMK how it goes!
Thank you for this great recipe. Made bacon chocolate chip cookies for my company’s holiday party and they were a big hit. Thanks again:)
You’re the first person who’s ever written to say they’ve subbed in bacon! Normally it’s toffee bits, butterscotch or PB chips, but never bacon! This is fun for me to hear and glad that they were a big hit!
I used 3 oz bacon to the 6 oz each of the chocolate chips, as I didn’t want the bacon to overpower the cookie. (Also, this was my first time baking, so I had no idea what I was doing lol.) Think it can go higher–will try 4 or 5 oz bacon next time.
Thanks again for the recipe, and the response. Making your s’mores version now. Happy Holidaze:)
I think you could almost go 1:1 with the bacon to chips, provided you want them pretty bacon-ey. I don’t even eat bacon but in things like this, you can use a pretty heavy hand. I love the smores version & hope you do too! LMK what you think!
S’mores came out great, too! Give them the slight edge > the bacon version. Perhaps next time I’ll have to make both at the same time so I can have a fresh-out-of-the-oven head-to-head matchup. Thanks again:)
Yay! So glad to hear you liked the Smores version too! I think a show-down next time is in order :) LMK how it goes!
I’m making these cookies for the first time today. Omg, these are seriously the best chic chip cookies I’ve ever made. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Thanks for LMK they’re the best CCC’s you ever made! That’s wonderful news and glad you love them!