Crisp on the outside, gooey in the middle and packed with milk chocolate chips – these are my best-ever Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Why these cookies are the BEST
- Chunky AF – each cookie weighs in at 120g!
- Rustic, golden brown exterior
- Crisp on the outside, gooey lava in the middle
- Chockablock with milk chocolate chips
- An easy, one-bowl recipe
The cookie debate: thick & gooey vs. thin & chewy cookies
Which side of the fence do you sit on?
If you were to ask me, I sit right in the middle on the fence! Sometimes a thick, gooey cookie in all its molten lava glory is exactly what is needed! But then other times, I love a thin chewy cookie to dunk in a cup of tea. Which is why I’ve created a recipe for both!
Here you’ll find the recipe for my thick NYC-style chocolate chip cookies. But if you’re looking for thin chewy chocolate chip cookies (similar to Millie’s cookies) then check out this recipe instead.
5 tips for baking thick chocolate chip cookies
This recipe took a lot of testing, trial and error to make sure it was absolutely fool-proof and perfect. Along the way, I learnt a few tips that will help you bake the best ever thick chocolate chip cookies.
1: Use cold butter
It may seem strange to use cold butter for cookies, as typically you would start with room temperature or even melted butter. But for thick cookies, it’s all about reducing spread in the oven as much as possible and that’s why we start with cold butter.
The cold butter is creamed with two types of sugar, so it’s best to take it out of the fridge 30 minutes or so before starting the recipe to make sure it’s not completely solid.
2: Use good-quality chocolate chips
Thick cookies are stuffed with lots of chocolate chips which turn into melted pools of chocolate when baked into the cookie. For the best result, use a good-quality chocolate chip like Guittard or Food Thoughts, they’re maxi in size and taste delicious! Alternatively, you could chop up bars of milk chocolate into big chunks and fold them into the cookie dough.
3: Freeze the cookie dough before baking
For this recipe you will bake the balls of cookie dough from frozen rather than from chilled. Frozen cookie dough = less spread = thick cookies!!!
I recommend at least 90 minutes (enough time to tidy up, make a cuppa and watch an episode of your favourite series). However, the longer you leave the cookie dough, the thicker your cookies will be. 24-48 hours is ideal!
TIP: prep the dough in advance and leave it in the freezer for up to 2 months. On the day, bake the cookies so they’re fresh, gooey and delicious!
4: Use a pre-heated, dark baking tray
What makes thick cookies extra special is their crisp golden outside with a gooey texture inside. Using a pre-heated, dark-coloured baking tray will heat up the outside of the cookie more quickly, making it crisp and golden. It also stops the cookies from spreading too quickly which keeps them nice and thick.
5: Thick cookies are best enjoyed straightaway
The fresher the cookies the better the flavour and texture! If you do need to bake ahead of time, freshen them up in the oven for 5 minutes 100°C (fan) to make the gooey and delicious agin.
Have you made this recipe?
I really hope you enjoyed it! And I’d also love to hear what you think, so feel free to leave a comment or rating below. You can also drop me a DM on Instagram or tag me @jessie.bakes.cakes so I can see your delicious cookies.
Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 200 g Cold unsalted butter Take the butter out of the fridge 30 minutes before you start baking so that it's not completely solid
- 180 g Light brown sugar
- 80 g White caster sugar
- 2 large Eggs at room temperature
- 250 g Self-raising flour
- 150 g Plain flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 300 g Milk/white/dark chocolate chips – or a mixture of all three see notes above on choosing the best chocolate chips
Instructions
Start by making the cookie dough
- Chop up the butter into chunks and place in a large mixing bowl. Beat using an electric mixer or wooden spoon for 1 minute. You want the butter to be slightly softer, broken up, but not at the 'creamed' stage.
- Add the light brown sugar and white caster sugar and beat together until just combined. Try not to over-mix at this stage otherwise the butter will become too soft.
- Mix in both of the eggs. The mixture won't look very appealing at this stage but don't worry it will do soon!
- In a separate bowl, stir together the self-raising flour, plain flour, salt and baking powder until well mixed. Tip into the butter mixture and fold everything together until it forms a thick cookie dough.
- Now add all of the chocolate chips and use your hands to mix them into the dough.
Shaping the cookies
- Line a baking tray or tin (one that will fit inside your freezer) with greaseproof paper.
- Weigh out 120g of the cookie dough, then use your hands to roughly shape it into a ball and place it on the baking tray. Thick cookies are meant to look rustic, so lumps and bumps on the cookie dough is exactly what you're looking for.
- Repeat this step until all the cookie dough is used up. You should get between 9-10 cookies in total. At this stage, you don't have to worry about the cookies being too close together on the baking tray. As long as they're not touching it's all good.
- Cover the baking tray with clingfilm and freeze the cookie dough balls for at least 90 minutes or up to 48 hours for best results. The longer you leave them, the thicker your cookies will be.
Baking the cookies
- Whilst the cookies are in the freezer, preheat your oven to 180°C (fan).
- Do this step 5 minutes before the freezing time is finished:Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper and place in the oven for 5 minutes to heat up. The heated tray will help the cookies crisp up and brown on the outside but still keep a gooey centre.
- Place 3 to 4 of the frozen cookie dough balls onto the tray. These cookies are very chunky so make sure you leave plenty of room between them.Bake the cookies in batches if you need to.
- Bake on the middle shelf of your oven for 15 minutes until golden on the outside edge but still only lightly browned on the top and in the middle. The cookies should still be nice and thick, with very little spread.
- Leave to cool for 5 on the baking tray, or just until you're happy to pick them up without them falling apart.
- Enjoy your cookies straightaway!
Notes
More cookie recipes to love
This post contains affiliate links which means I will make a small commission if you purchase through those links. I only recommend products that I know, trust and love!
This recipe was tasty, but there is way too much flour. They came out very pale and tasting like a biscuit, I think next time I make it I will cut down the amount of flour needed 🙂
Is there a maximum time they can be left in the freezer for before baking?
Hi Adam,
Up to 4 weeks 🙂 The longer they freeze for the thicker they will be!
The best! This is my only bookmarked cookie recipe, I make them often and everybody LOVES them. Never had so much success with thick, chewy cookies, the freezing for at least 2 hours is a godsend. Sometimes I’ve put oreos/nuts/marshmallows/different types of chocolate in as direct substitute to the chocolate in the recipe. Thank you 😊🙏🏻
What a gorgeous review!!! thank you so so much, keep enjoying this recipe and I love the flavour twists you’ve tried… marshmallows… YUM!
One quick question. Do you absolutely have to put them in the freezer because it’s just a lot of extra effort but these cookies look so good. Thank you
Hi Chloe, it really depends on how thick you’d like the cookies to be. Freezing them will give the cookies more structure so they spread less in the oven and have that classic NYC-style cookie texture. But what you could do is test-bake one rolled cookie at room temperature and see how it comes out. Some people have made this recipe without freezing the cookies first and loved them! All personal preferences and also different ovens/baking tray materials/temperature of ingredients can all have an effect on how the cookies bake 😊 Hope that helps!
Thank you that helped a lot gonna go make them now!
Finally I found a thick cookies recipe that don’t have nuts in it! These are SO good, I keep them in the freezer and pop one in the oven when I have a craving.
Only thing is, my cookies don’t spread at all in the oven 🙁 Not sure why
Hi Lisa, thanks so much for this lovely review 🙂 If your cookies aren’t spreading, I would try freezing them for less time or even test baking one from room temperature. Baking tray material/oven temperature/temperature of the ingredients… can all effect the spread of the cookies. Hope that helps!
This recipe is my fave choc chip recipe ever, thank you for sharing ❤️
This review has made my day, thank you Tanya!!! Keep enjoying and happy baking 🍪
These were delicious, I found that they needed longer than instructed in the oven due to the freezing / size, but once cooked these were fantastic, lovely chunky and chocolatey. The only problem is holding back and not eating the whole tray!
I LOVE this review! Thank you Annie, I’m so pleased to hear you loved the cookies and the baking time is always a guide as it can differ oven to oven.
Jessie, this was amazing ti follow and the pictures really helped me, im bot a confident baker and I struggle usually following a recipe.
I made these a couple if weeks ago, I doubled the mix and kept them in the freezer. Each night I made a ritual of cooking myself 2 after the baby went to bed and putting on my current show and eating my delicious warm cookies 🤩 in the 2 weeks I perfected all the timings so that my cookies were exactly how i liked them and ready not tok long after bubs went to bed. I’m making another double batch rn to last me another couple of weeks 😋😍
Incase anyone would like to know I heat my fan oven and pizza stone for 10mins, cook for 20mins, leave them on the stone outside of the oven for another 10mins. Perfection 🍪🍪
What a lovely review! Thank you so much for sharing and I’m over the moon to hear how much you enjoy the cookies. The perfect treat once baby is sleeping peacefully 🙂
Just made these and they are absolutely delicious! Big, chunky cookies, crunchy on the outside and perfectly soft and gooey on the inside. The only thing I changed was reducing the brown sugar to 150g and they were still plenty sweet. If I made them again I might try and make the dough balls slightly smaller, around 90-100g and reduce the baking time slightly accordingly. But that is just personal preference for wanting slightly smaller cookies.
What a lovely review! Thank you so much for sharing 😊
mine failed completely and pretty much just mushed all into one massive half raw cookie and spread all over the tray idk what i did wrong but been in the oven 25 mins and still raw😂
Hi Samatha, so sorry to hear this!! It sounds like an oven temperature/setting issue. Can I ask if you have a conventional or fan-forced oven? It sounds as though the temperature wasn’t high enough to crisp up the edges of the cookies quickly which helps prevent them from spreading.
Hi! Just came over this recipe and was wondering if I can also do it with “normal” well just plain flour? Here in switzerland we don’t have self rising flour? Thanks:)
Hi Alessia, do you have baking powder in Switzerland? If so, you can use 400g plain flour + 2.5tsp baking powder 😊
Hi there, these cookies are amazing and have gone down so well in my family. Thanks for sharing recipe and tips and tricks! I’m wondering if I was to add coco powder to the recipe how much would you recommend to your recipe? Thanks so much 🥰
Hi Jessie,
I don’t have an oven with a fan. Do I just have to raise the baking temperature and time or is it better to bake them quicker so they won’t spread that much?
I could still use my air fryer but it will take forever if I want to make more than two cookies. ^^
Thanks 🙂
Hey Anni,
For a conventional oven increase the baking temperature to 200°C. One thing to bear in mind is that cookies baked in a conventional oven may not spread out as much, so you can try reducing the freezing time to 45-60 minutes (instead of min 90) so the cookies aren’t as frozen when they go in the oven. Or you could test bake one rolled cookie without freezing first, to see how much it spreads. Hope that helps!
I make a batch of these, freeze them and then cook them one at a time in the air fryer. This way I’m getting hot cookies (runny cookie dough in the middle) whenever I want. They go down very well in work too! Warning though, you have to learn self control to do this 😅
Wowwww!!! LOVE the airfryer hack Kay! That’s such a great idea to keep them stashed in the freezer for when a cookie craving hits… genius.
I don’t know what I did wrong they spread out!! Help please
Hi Kayleigh. So sorry to hear that, there could be a number of reasons why they didn’t spread e.g. the oven could be too hot/not preheated enough/the material of your baking tray.
Next time I’d suggest freezing the rolled cookies for less time (maybe 2-3 hours instead)
Hi. Is it possible to reduce the weight/size of the cookie? Like 80g? Same results? Thanks!
Hello Marj, it’s definitely worth a try! They may not be as thick but still delicious 😋
My family and I loved these cookies! <3
So happy to hear Georgia 😍
Amazing chunky cookie recipe!! I veganised it by using two flax eggs and Nuttelex vegan butter and it turned out amazing!!
Hi Stephanie, so happy that you enjoyed the cookies and thanks for sharing how you made them vegan too! Really great to hear they turned out just as well 😊
Hi, these cookies taste amazing, I was just wondering if you knew the calorie amount per cookie? Thank you
Hi Amy, so happy to hear you enjoyed the cookies! I don’t have the calorie info I’m afraid but hopefully they were worth every bite 😉
I logged all the ingredients on my fitness pal and one cookie is 564 calories!
hi I really want to make these cookies using a electic mixer but im worried that my mixer will break when mixing the cold butter. do you have any tips or advice will really be helpful 🙂
I have a KitchenAid and use the paddle attachment. Start with the mixer on a low speed. If you’re worried about it breaking that you could use a wooden spoon to beat it first just to help soften the butter a little bit, then swap to using the electric mixer ☺️
These are the best thick, soft cookies!! I made them according to the recipe once and fell in love. The second time, I subbed all whole wheat flour, and they still turned out amazing. Great recipe!
Hi Elisabeth, thank you for taking the time to leave this lovely review 😊 so happy to hear you loved the recipe and it’s a great idea to switch it up and use whole wheat flour instead, I must try this!
These ROCK! I’m giving them a shout-out on my blog http://www.miccisbiccies.com !
Thanks so much Micci 😍🍪
No self rising flour in Mt area, is that the same as all purpose flour?
Hi Beeyah,
Thanks for your comment 😊 where is the Mt area? I’m based in the U.K so I’m not sure where that is.
All purpose flour doesn’t have any raising agent in it. In the U.K we call that “Plain flour”. Where as self-raising flour has baking powder and salt mixed into the flour already, helping bakes to rise.
This recipe uses both all-purpose and self-raising flour. However the cookies will definitely still work just using 400g all-purpose flour if that is all you have 😊
Hope that helps!
[…] In this blog post you will find the recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies. But if you’re looking for thick, chunky chocolate chip cookies (think NYC / Levain Bakery style) then check out this recipe instead. […]