These BIG chocolate chip cookies use a high-temperature searing method to get a delightfully crispy exterior and a gooey, almost half-baked center. They’re big, wow-worthy and, in my humble opinion, beat out a heck of a lot of specialty cookie shops.
These big chocolate chip cookies are for the folks that want an impressive, absolutely delicious cookie that tastes like it could come from one of the many incredible cookie-specializing bakeries. Growing up on Long Island and living in Brooklyn in adult life, I’ve eaten (and drooled over) a cookie or two from noted NY cookie spots. And it takes a LOT for me to say a recipe is up in these rankings, so I certainly mean it.
The base recipe for these BIG chocoate chip cookies is the same as my salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies, which have more than 3.5M views on TikTok in its single serve cookie skillet form (and one user hailed the best cookie dough they’ve ever tasted). The big variation here, which we’ll get into, is size and oven temperature. Our high-temp searing method gives us big chocolate chip cookies with a crispy outside that shatters into a gooey, melty inside.
Alright, get ready for the best BIG chocolate chip cookies.
Big Chocolate Chip Cookies
How this recipe came to be
Recently I came across the above tweet in my feed. And it dang stirred something in me. I couldn’t agree more, and I wondered what the most medium-rare cookie I could make was. I mean, I wondered for five seconds because I quickly remembered making exactly this medium rare cookie.
Back when I was deep in recipe testing for my salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies, I tested a range of cookie sizes and baking temperatures. When I tested the large size, high temperature cookie, I was truly blown away and wrote down in my notes “I think the 110g 375 cookie is the best I have ever made.” I shared a photo of it below if you want to see (please disregard my chicken scratch handwriting).
But I didn’t end up going with this size for the salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies recipe because I thought they were, well, a little too big for an everyday chocolate chip cookie. The size I recommend for the salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies is big enough that you still get a crispy edge and gooey middle, but it’s still perfect for bringing to a party or keeping some balls of dough in the freezer ready to bake at any moment.
But I think there’s no better time to share these big chocolate chip cookies. The size and high-temperature searing method really makes them the most delightfully medium rare cookie I’ve ever tasted.
The secret to making these BIG chocolate chip cookies
The real secret here is size and oven temperature. Your cookies should be 110 grams, which is about a 5-tablespoon scoop. This is about 60% larger than our pretty medium-sized salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies, so these are definitely BIG boys. A larger cookie has more surface area, so it can more easily have different textures throughout the cookie (ie, crispy outside, soft inside)
Next, as I mentioned before, we’re bumping up the temperature of the oven. Our goal is to essentially sear the outside of the cookie like you would a steak. Instead of baking at 350°F like a traditional chocolate chip cookie, we’re baking at 375°F. The high heat allows the whole outside of the cookie to go through the baking process faster. The cookie rises and sets quickly. The outside of the cookie then goes through the Maillard reaction, which is when sugars and proteins are heated enough that they create a nutty, toasted flavor, which you can see in the slightly caramelized outside of the cookie.
Once the outside of the cookie is baked, we pull the tray from the oven and let the inside finish baking from the residual heat. The result is a cookie that’s thick and perfectly crispy on the outside, but slightly under-baked on the inside.
Okay aside from being big and medium-rare, what makes these cookies so delicious?
Outside of the wonderfully large size and high-temp searing method, there are a few things that make these cookies truly outrageous:
- Brown butter: Brown butter is crucial in this recipe for a robust, warm flavor. I took a tip out of Cook’s Illustrated and added one ice cube at the end to stop the cooking process and restore some of the water that evaporates in the browning process. See How to make brown butter below for a full walkthrough on achieving this nutty goodness.
- All brown sugar: A lot of recipes call for both brown and granulated sugar for fear that the edge of the cookie won’t crisp without granulated. I found that all brown sugar makes a perfectly crisp edge while also giving you thicker, more flavorful cookies. Justice for all brown sugar!
- A mix of chocolate chips and chopped chocolate: For this recipe, I love using one 4-ounce bar of chocolate and 3/4 cup quality chocolate chips. I’m a fan Ghiradelli for both. This combination is great because chocolate chips have stabilizers that keep them from getting melty, so by using both you get the beautiful studs of chips and the melted goodness of chopped chocolate.
- Finely chopped walnuts: I love walnuts in chocolate chip cookies, but I never want them to be so big that they distract from the gooeyness of the cookie and chocolate. This recipe calls for chopping walnuts finely but not to powder so that you get the boost of flavor but not the big crunch of a walnut. Feel free to omit walnuts if you’re allergic or not a fan.
- Not one, but two types of salt: I always use unsalted butter in baking so that I can control the amount of salt through the dry ingredients. In this recipe, we use a teaspoon and a quarter of sea or kosher salt in the dough (you can drop this in half or so if you’re using salted butter). I then top the cookies with flaky sea salt (Maldon is my favorite – one box will last you a long while) to really amplify the chocolate and sweetness of the cookie.
Tips for perfect chocolate chip cookies
- Properly measure your flour. Under-measuring flour can lead to thin cookies that spread too much and over-measuring can give you puffy and dry cookies. I always use a kitchen scale to measure my dry ingredients and include the measurements in grams in this recipe so you can, too. You can get a pretty cheap scale on Amazon (I used a $15 scale for years). If you’re using a cup measure, first fluff the flour in its bag, then use a spoon to place it into your measuring cup. Level the flour off by scraping the flat backside of a knife across the top of the cup measure.
- Rest your dough. Letting the dough chill in the fridge makes the cookies far mroe flavorful as the flour hydrates and breaks down into the other ingredients. Chilling also solidifies the fat, so the cookies spread less in the hot oven and come out nice and thick. You need to chill this dough for a minimum of 2 hours and maximum of 48. Usually I chill for 24 hours and find the flavor at that point is excellent.
- Check the real temperature of your oven. Ovens are rarely the temperature they say they are – they usually run slightly hot or slightly cool. You can purchase an inexpensive oven thermometer, set it in the center of your oven and see what the temperature is when your oven has been preheated for a while (I always wait a few minutes after the oven says it’s preheated as it might still be reaching the final temperature). Now you can adjust for however hot or cool your oven is in reality. For example, my Brooklyn oven is 25 degrees too hot, so whenever I turn it on I set it 25 degrees lower.
- Save some pieces of chopped chocolate and press one or two into each cookie right before they go into the oven. This lets you get an oozy pool of chocolate in the top of each cookie and makes them frankly stunning.
- Underbake your cookies. When you take them out of the oven, they should be brown on the edges and ever so slightly brown on top, but you’ll think they’re underdone. As cookies keep baking from residual heat when you pull them from the oven, slightly underbaking ensures your cookie won’t dry out.
How to make brown butter
Brown butter is butter that has been cooked long enough to toast the milk solids. It’s delicious and nutty, and truly makes an impact on the flavor of the whole baked good. It’s not challenging to make, it just requires patience and paying attention with your eyes and nose.
To make brown butter, you’ll put your butter in a pan or small pot over medium heat. The butter will melt most evenly if it’s at room temp, but you can use butter straight from the fridge, too.
The butter will melt and then foam and simmer, but if it starts to boil turn down the heat. After foaming, the butter will turn golden brown and start to smell nutty – this means you’re almost there. Swirl the pan often so the butter cooks evenly. You’re going to start to see some light colored, solid specks at the bottom of the pan. These are the milk solids! Once you see them turn brown, remove the pan from the heat so the milk solids don’t burn. Now you have brown butter.
You’ll want to let the brown butter cool slightly before adding it to the recipe so it doesn’t melt other ingredients.
If you make these, be sure to tag me on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such and please leave a review below!
The Best BIG Chocolate Chip Cookies
10
cookies30
minutes2
hoursKeep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups (300 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. kosher or other coarse salt
1 1/2 cups (320 grams) light brown sugar
2 eggs at room temperature
1 TBS. vanilla extract
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I like 60%-80%)
4 ounces chocolate bar, chopped so most pieces are the size of chocolate chips but some are larger (you can sub with an additional 3/4 cups chocolate chips if need be)
2/3 cup (75 grams) walnuts, chopped finely but not to a powder (optional)
Flaky sea salt to top
Directions
- Brown your butter by putting it in a pan over medium heat. The butter will turn from solid, to melted, to foamy, but should never boil. If it starts to boil, turn down your heat. Once the butter is melted, swirl the pan often to ensure the butter cooks evenly. The butter will go from melted to foamy to golden brown. Keep cooking until you see brown specks at the bottom of the pan and the butter smells intensely nutty and rich. Take the pan off the heat so the butter doesn’t burn and add one ice cube – this stops the cooking process of the butter and restores the liquid lost from the browning process, helping to make sure your cookies aren’t dry.
Allow the butter to cool so that it’s room temperature or just warm when you add it to your sugar. If it’s hot straight from the pan, you can accidentally melt your sugar. - While the brown butter cools, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt to a medium-sized bowl. Whisk thoroughly, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl so that the ingredients are evenly incorporated.
- Once the brown butter is slightly cooled, add the brown butter and brown sugar to a large bowl. Mix with a whisk until they’re fully combined and the butter isn’t separated from the sugar. Add the vanilla and eggs and whisk well.
- Pour the flour mixture into your wet ingredients. Using a spatula, fold in the dry ingredients until there are only a few streaks of flour left, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the chopped chocolate and walnuts, keeping your larger pieces of chocolate aside.
- Portion your dough into balls that weigh 110 grams, or approximately a 5-tablespoon scoop. Place on a sheet tray, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge, still keeping your larger pieces of chocolate separate. The dough needs to chill for at least two hours and a maximum of 48 hours (I prefer 24 hours).
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°F. Space your cookies on a baking sheet, giving at least 3 inches between each cookie. Press one or two pieces of your reserved chopped chocolate into the top.
Bake for 10-11 minutes. Keep a very close eye on your oven, and take a quick peak at around 8 minutes to make sure they’re not overbaking. You’ll know the cookies are ready when the edges are brown and the tops are slightly golden brown. They’ll look a little underbaked, but will keep cooking from residual heat when you take them out of the oven and reach a gooey medium rare. You an always let your first batch cool and taste before you put in your second and know when to pull the cookies.
Top with flaky sea salt (a must!) while hot from the oven so they stick, let cool for five minutes, and enjoy.