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These brown sugar chocolate chip cookies are super easy to make, come together quickly, and result in thick, soft chocolate chip cookies with crispy edges. This chocolate chip cookies recipe is going to become a family favorite!
What is it about a homemade chocolate chip cookie? Warm, gooey, thick, chewy – can’t resist. The aroma in your kitchen when they are baking.
I seriously have no willpower around a great soft chocolate chip cookie.
And these brown sugar chocolate chip cookies are the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe. Find the fat pants. Stock up on milk. Please don’t hate me.
White Sugar Vs. Brown Sugar
This recipe calls for all brown sugar in the cookie, and no granulated sugar. This makes for a chocolate chip cookie that is very chewy, and does spread less than if you were to use some granulated sugar. Over the years I have received many comments from readers having difficulty with their cookies coming out perfectly. They were either too dry or cakey and not soft and chewy like we wanted.
So after many rounds of testing, I have since updated this recipe and increased the amount of brown sugar (from 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups). More brown sugar provided more moisture to these cookies. I think this new and improved version will be a big hit in your kitchen and make for some foolproof chocolate chip cookies made with all brown sugar!
See Also:
- Pucker up and enjoy one of these homemade lemon cookies with easy lemon glaze drizzled over them!
- Coconut macaroons are an easy gluten free chewy coconut cookie. Dip in chocolate for an easy chocolate treat!
- Grab a jar of peanut butter and make these wonderfully easy old fashioned peanut butter cookies with criss cross pattern on top!
- Make these brown sugar chocolate chips cookies made with 100% brown sugar making them wonderfully chewy!
Why You Will Love This Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
- Quick to throw together. I usually love to chill my cookie dough recipe, like with these New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies but that’s not needed with these cookies. That means in about 10 minutes, these are ready to go in the oven.
- Less spreading. This cookie uses all brown sugar which means tons of flavor, and less spreading in the oven. As explained by Serious Eats, sugar, either white or brown, is hygroscopic meaning it will soak up the moisture in the flour. But brown sugar more so than white. So that means these cookies will spread less than if you used part white sugar.
- Perfect For Freezing. I love that I can bake a dozen and still have about another 1 1/2 dozen that I can freeze for later. You can check out the freezing cookie dough tutorial here.
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Ingredients needed:
- All purpose flour – I have made cookie recipes that have called for different types of flour, but I love a cookie recipe that calls for simplicity of all purpose flour. We all have this on hand, which means we can make these anytime we want.
- Baking Powder and Baking soda – I use both in this recipe and I think it’s the perfect balance to create the texture in these cookies. You can read more here about the Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda
- Salt – Salt is super important in your cookie recipe. Salt plays a major role in baking to balancing out the sweetness and bringing out the intensity of the chocolate.
- Unsalted butter – it’s important to use unsalted butter because you can control the amount of salt in your recipe this way.
- Light brown sugar – Normally I use a combination of granulated sugar and brown sugar, but I decided to go 100% brown sugar and that’s what I think gives these perfectly crinkly edges, flavor, and chewy texture.
- Eggs – You will need 2 room temperature large eggs. I always place mine in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes to bring them to room temperature quickly.
- Vanilla extract – I always recommend using pure vanilla extract. Or you can try and make your own diy vanilla extract.
- Chocolate chips – I have used semi-sweet chips, but milk chocolate as well. You can also use a combination of regular chips, mini chocolate chips, discs, chunks, and bars chopped up, which is what I love to do. I like using a combination so that I get chocolate of every shape and size in every single bite. Basically pure heaven.
How To Make These Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies
Step 1: Measure Your Dry Ingredients
Pre-heat oven to 375oF. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (or silicone baking mat).
If you can use a weighing scale for best accuracy. Otherwise make sure to read my tips on measuring flour.
You want to whisk together your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Step 2: Cream Butter and Brown Sugar
In a large bowl with a mixer (you can use a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment) cream your butter and sugar together for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Proper creaming with properly softened butter is what helps to aerate the mixture.
The sugar basically punches holes into the butter creating air pockets, which then will fill with the gasses created with the leavening agents which can help create some lift in the cookies.
Step 3: Add Your Eggs
Once the mixture has properly creamed together, then add in your room temperature eggs, and vanilla extract. Make sure they are thoroughly mixed in. You want to make sure your eggs are room temperature so they don’t seize up the butter mixture.
Pro tip: You can place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes before using them to bring them to room temperature quickly.
Step 4: Add Your Dry Ingredients
Now add your dry ingredients. You want to make sure to not overmix once you’ve added the flour mixture. I like to stop the mixer right before it’s all mixed in, and then finish mixing with a spatula.
This will be a thick dough, but don’t worry it’s supposed to be!
Note: I have heard from a few readers that their dough was too thick (it’s supposed to be!) and tried to adjust the cookie dough after everything is mixed together. Please trust the process and know you have done it correctly, do not try to adjust the consistency at this point with extra ingredients.
Overmixing will result in dense, tough cookies because it will create too much gluten (protein in flour that make it chewy and tough).
Step 5: Add Your Chocolate Chips
Again, I love a combo. Miniature chocolate chips. Regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. And chocolate chunks. The difference in sizes results in chocolate in every bite.
Step 6: Scoop The Cookies
You can make them regular sized using a 1-inch cookie scoop. Or make them large! Up to you 🙂
You can then stir in the chocolate chips at this point. Again just stir enough to mix them in and then stop mixing.
Next you need to scoop the cookies.
Scoop cookie dough, using a 1-inch cookie scoop, and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 10-12 minutes. The top of the cookies should still look soft and puffy, but not wet or raw. The edges will be crispy and golden brown. The cookies will continue to bake when you take them out of the oven so it’s important to not overbake and take them out when the middles look dry but not quite done.
Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day.
Recipe Tips
- Measure your flours correctly. For best results I recommend using a kitchen scale. But if you are using measuring cups than you want to pay attention to how you measure. Too much flour can result in a dense cookie. Don’t just scoop the flour directly into your measuring cup. This can result in a major over measurement! After you have spooned the flour in, then use a knife to level off the flour. Don’t tap the sides of the measuring cup, or pack your flour down. Both can also result in too much flour. You can read a full tutorial on how to measure flour here. You can read more about Which Flour Is Best For Cookies?
- Butter softened to room temperature. Does the temperature of the butter matter? It matter so much this quote was added to end of the recipe in the cookbook.”Butter is like the concrete you use to pour the foundation of a building. So it’s very important to get it right: the temperature, the texture, and aeration” So in other words…yea it matters. It matters so much I did an entire post on how butter temperature affects cookies. The butter needs to be softened to room temperature, which mean you can slightly indent your thumb in the butter but shouldn’t easily smoosh all the way through. If you forget to take your butter out in time, cut the butter into small chunks and leave out at room temperature. It will soften much faster this way. When you cream the butter and sugars together it’s also important to let this happen for 2-3 minutes to allow enough air into the batter and helps leavens the cookies. For 3 quick ways to soften your butter, you can read this post.
- Use a cookie scoop – Why? A cookie scoop results in even-size balls of dough that will cook evenly. Even size = even baking.
Recipe Variations
- Use dark brown sugar – For a chewier cookie, use dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar.
- Use browned butter – Instead of melted butter you could swap and use browned butter instead.
- Use chocolate chunks – You could use chocolate chunks, or chopped chocolate for more chocolate in every bite!
- Bake a little longer – If you want a crisp chocolate chip cookie, then bake for an extra minute or two.
Recipe FAQs
Cookie spreading is a bummer. There 8 reasons that I can think of why your cookies may have spread. If your cookies do spread in the oven, you can try this little trick I picked up from Sally’s Baking Addiction, which is to take them out of the oven and take a spoon and press the edges of the cookie inward. You can also try and chill your cookie dough to help keep the cookies from spreading so much.
Yes absolutely you can!
To freeze unbaked: Scoop the cookies onto a cookie sheet, and freeze solid. Then place into a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can bake frozen, without thawing, but add on a few extra minutes of baking time.
To freeze baked: Allow the cookies to cool completely. Then when ready to eat, allow to thaw. I like to pop them into the microwave for about 20 seconds to bring them back to ooey gooey life.
Click here to learn how to freeze your cookie dough.
You may have used too much flour. Use a kitchen scale for best accuracy. And do NOT scoop directly into the measuring cup but spoon it in to the cup and level it off.
Or this could be because you overbaked the cookies. If the dough is too warm (remember that chilling time!) then it could cause them too spread too much resulting in a cookie that gets too thin and gets too crispy and hard.
Your oven temperature may also be too high. I recommend using an oven thermometer to ensure your oven is running at the correct temperature. Click here to read more about using your oven properly when baking.
Keep covered at room temperature for up to 3 days.
More recipes to try:
Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups (360 g) all purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 227 g) unsalted butter softened
- 2 cups (414 g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375oF. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (or silicone baking mat).
- Start by measuring your flour (I recommend using a kitchen scale). But if measuring by volume, then first stir the flour in the bag/container as flour tends to settle. Then spoon the flour into your measuring cup, and then level it off at the top. Do not pack it down into the cup, or tap the sides as more flour will pack into the cup. Add the flour to your mixing bowl. Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
- Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until very light, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
- Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. This will be a thick dough but it's suppossed to be, don't worry! Add chocolate and stir in, on low speed, just until combined.
- Scoop cookie dough, using a 1-inch cookie scoop, and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 10-12 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day.
Notes
- Recipe Updated 09/18/2022: Many readers were stating they were having issues with their cookies being dry, or cakey. The recipe has since been updated to increase the amount of brown sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups to provide more moisture.
- Tools: Cookies Sheets | Oven Thermometer |Kitchen-Aid Mixer |Cookie Scoop | silicon baking mat | spatula | cooling rack | cookie spatula
- Store cookies at room temperature. Cookies will last 2-3 days at room temperature.
- To freeze unbaked: Scoop the cookies onto a cookie sheet, and freeze solid. Then place into a sealable plastic bag. You can bake frozen, without thawing, but add on a few extra minutes of baking time.
- To freeze baked: Allow the cookies to cool completely. Then when ready to eat, allow to thaw. I like to pop them into the microwave for about 20 seconds to bring them back to ooey gooey life.
- Measure your flours correctly. After you have spooned the flour in, then use a knife to level off the flour. Don’t tap the sides of the measuring cup, or pack your flour down.
- Soften your butter correctly. The butter needs to be softened to room temperature, which mean you can slightly indent your thumb in the butter but shouldn’t easily smoosh all the way through.
- Cream properly. When you cream the butter and sugars together it’s also important to let this happen for 2-3 minutes, on medium speed, to allow enough air into the batter and helps leavens the cookies.
Anne says
Hello Boston girl! Thank you for this recipe. I followed it exactly as it was written and have just pulled the first batch out from my oven and they smell and look terrific. I even set my timer for 10 minutes of cooling time. I’m not sure I can wait.
Heather says
Oh that’s wonderful I’m so glad!!
Anne says
I followed the recipe, exactly as written. I just pulled the first tray out of the oven and oh my goodness they smell and look wonderful! I can’t wait for the 10 minutes of coooling to be over 😁 Thank you!
Jess says
These are hands down the best cookies I’ve ever made! What I did differently: I used ducks eggs (duck eggs are a bit richer than chicken eggs), authentic Mexican vanilla extract (also more rich) and baked for just the 10 mins. I hope that helps someone make cookies as good as these!
Great recipe! Thanks so much for putting it out there!
Heather says
aw thank you Jess! and quality vanilla definitely makes a difference. And that’s so cool you used duck eggs- I’ve never baked with those. Thank you for such kind words!
v jane says
Very chewy, crispy on the edges! 10/10. The only thing is they do spread a lot, at least they did for me.. so beware!
Also, question. Are these 211Cals per cookie? Is the serving size 1 cookie?
Love the recipe
Heather says
Thanks! Glad you loved them! And if the cookies are spreading too much try chilling the cookie dough for an hour up to overnight to help. I’ll double check but yes that calorie should be correct.
kai says
for me, they did not spread that much. I would recommend baking them for the recommended time, taking them out, pressing them down with the bottom of a glass, and putting them back in for 5 min if you want crispy cookies