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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I made these today and they are out of this world! I can hardly wait for the hubs to get home…he is sooooo gonna love me! (and you :).
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Nice surprise for your hubby on a Friday night after work!
Thank goodness a cookie that does not spread out and become thin. They are beautiful and chewy cookies. Tasted warm so not sure how they are cold. I am not a chocolate chip person but my husband is. I did try a couple bites though. I am so pleased with them. I can’t tell you how many I have tried and wasn’t happy with at all. THANK YOU!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out wonderfully and that you’re so pleased and that my recipe did the trick for you!
my oven can only bake up to 270, so what do you think I should do?
270F or 270C? This is a recipe for 350F and you’d want to stick with that in order for the cookies to turn out properly.
These cookies are awesome and are now my go to cookie recipe. I’ve tried the chocolate chip and the M&Ms, both were a big hit with my family. I’m looking forward to trying the other variations. Thank you!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out so great for you that they’re your new go-to cookie recipe! And thanks for trying the M&Ms cookies, too!
Hi Averie,
Is this still your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe? (I’m trying to decide which one to try next, and I’m thinking it will be this one!)
Thanks!
By the way, I’m obsessed with the Six Layer Cookie S’mores Bars from your book. I’ve made them about four times and everyone loves them!
Love that you’ve made the 6 Layer Smores Bars so many times! Funny when my book came out, that recipe is what many of my blogger friends made and blogged about!
https://www.averiecooks.com/2014/02/the-best-soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies.html I love those as well as these. And these https://www.averiecooks.com/2013/06/softbatch-cream-cheese-chocolate-chip-cookies.html You can’t go wrong with any of the 3!
I was wondering if I HAVE to refrigerate the cookies before I bake them?
Please read this post on why I highly recommend chilling dough! https://www.averiecooks.com/the-best-soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Cookies look amazing! I want to make them for my sister she just got a new job. I have a question though. I know you changed the recipe to not use bread flour anymore and I wanted to know if instead you are using 2 cups of all purpose flour?
Thank you.
Yes.
Hi Averi is it possible to get this recipe in grams ? the butter, sugars , flour and also the chocolate …. TIA
There are online conversion tools you can use to plug the data in yourself in minutes. Enjoy the cookies!