Chocolate Chip Cookies I
Serves 10 Time Prep: 20 minutes Cooking: 12 minutes Total: 32 minutes Ingredients 21 Steps 15
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (½ lb / 225 g / 1 cup) butter, softened
- ¾ cup (180 ml) granulated white sugar
- ¾ cup (180 ml) packed brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 standard (100 g) eggs
- 2 ¼ cups (600 ml / 290 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dry ground lemon or orange peel (optional)
- 2 cups (480 ml / 12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate morsels / chips
- 5 oz (150 g) chopped nuts, such as groundnuts (optional)
- Use cake flour instead of all-purpose, replace granulated sugar with brown sugar and use butter instead of margarine. Using cake flour and brown sugar allows you to use butter without fear of your cookies becoming puddles (which is the only reason to use margarine in the first place).
- Use some vegetable shortening in place of butter/margarine to reduce "spread" (cookies will be thicker).
- Add some vegetable oil (no more than 1/5 of total fat) in place of butter/margarine to increase spread, resulting in thinner cookies.
- Using chocolate with a cocoa content greater than 65% will result in a significantly different taste than the "traditional" recipe. In general, if you find the raw chocolate to be too bitter or not enjoyable to eat, you may not like them in the cookies (no matter the quality).
- Adding a few shakes of ground cinnamon with the dry ingredients also gives more flavor.
- If you want to use regular flour as well as butter, the trick is to increase the amount of flour to 3+ cups, which should result in a fairly stiff dough that will not spread out very much. This trick even works with whole wheat flour.
- The proportion of granulated to brown sugar may be adjusted to suit taste. More brown sugar will result in chewier cookies. More white sugar will result in crisper cookies.
- Adding a greater quantity of vanilla extract (between ½ and ¾ of a teaspoon, rather than ¼) gives the cookie a more pronounced flavor.
- If vanilla extract is not readily available, substitute two teaspoons of vanilla sugar for granulated sugar.
- Add a small amount of oatmeal to give cookies more flavor and mouth-feel.
Steps
- Preheat oven to 375°F (210°C), or 350°F (195°C) for chewy cookies.
- Cream butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in large mixer bowl.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating until fully incorporated.
- Add vanilla extract. Beat in.
- Sift dry ingredients (except chocolate and nuts) in small bowl. Add to wet mixture in two parts. Fold until combined. Overbeating forms gluten and changes texture.
- Stir in chocolate morsels (chips), and nuts if using.
- Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets. Use parchment paper or non-stick pans if sticking occurs.
- Bake in preheated oven 10–12 minutes, until golden brown. Stand about 1 minute. Remove from hot sheet to wire rack to cool.
- Optional: chill dough before baking to reduce spread and make thicker cookies.
- Use ungreased, non-stick baking sheet for thicker cookies. Grease sheet for thinner, crispier cookies.
- Use top-quality butter, chocolate and vanilla.
- Chopped bar chocolate instead of chips gives more rustic texture. Keep pieces small enough to eat comfortably.
- Do not stack hot cookies. Cool on cooling rack.
- For stronger nut flavor, toast nuts evenly spread on baking pan in 350°F oven, 10 minutes. Cool before adding to dough.
- For soft, squishy middle, remove cookies one minute sooner.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Chocolate Chip Cookies I” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2026-04-16, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Chocolate chip cookies.jpg by Rdsmith4, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.