Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I want you to take in these words, close your eyes, and visualize their meaning. Feel the warmth from the oven as you peer at them baking. Breathe in their scent, imagine the taste, the texture, and let it linger softly on your tongue. Chocolate Chip Cookies will always be my ultimate cookie. Certainly sugar, shortbread, and oatmeal raisin all have a time and a place, but they have never carved out such a sweet place in my heart like dear chocolate chip.
And oh what a sweet place it is.
In my year and a half of blogging, I have never shared a chocolate chip cookie recipe with you. There was a reason for this. I've shared a variation here or there, but you don't mess around with the true classic. When I was going to share a chocolate chip cookie recipe with you, I didn't want it to be just any cookie. I wanted it to stand out, to be special, to be different.
A good chocolate chip cookie has a few requirements. A great chocolate chip cookie has many more. I know some of you prefer them thin and crispy, but today's recipe is all about the thick and chewy chocolate chip cookie.
This chocolate chip cookie recipe comes to me from a close family friend. It is her secret recipe, sought after by everyone blessed enough to try one of her cookies (me included). Fortunately, she has given me permission to share her secret with you. I won't reveal my source, however. The woman has an image to uphold (and a secret recipe to stay "secret").
This particular recipe has a slight twist. It is made with vegetable shortening instead of butter, which keeps the cookies wonderfully thick (cookies with a high butter content spread out very thin). The cookie also uses a couple tablespoons of mild molasses for one specific purpose. The molasses keeps the inside of the cookies soft for days (if they last that long, of course), without lending a distinct flavor. Five days on my kitchen counter and these cookies are as soft as the day I made them.
These soft and chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you'll ever need. With just the right ratio of chocolate chips to cookie dough, the cookie maintains a very soft center while the edges stay lightly browned and crispy. These are lovely dipped into a glass of milk or eaten warm and gooey, straight out of the oven.
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Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields about 3 dozen
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup vegetable shortening
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons mild molasses (or 1 tablespoon regular molasses)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2-3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
In a large mixing bowl, blend together the granulated and brown sugar. Cream together the sugars and vegetable shortening until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well between additions. Mix in the vanilla extract and mild molasses.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the baking soda, salt, and flour. Gradually add the flour mixture to the batter. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Scoop cookies onto a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Remove from oven and leave cookies on baking sheet for a few minutes so the cookies can set. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Reader Comments (33)
hugs
That's very nice of your friend to share her secret recipe! :) PS. Love that red table (or wood plank) you shot the photos on, they all look beautiful.
Thanks :)
The way you described chocolate chip cookies made me think of my perfect chocolate chip cookie. I'm a fan of the soft and chewy verity. Your post also got me to thinking that I have yet to find my perfect chocolate chip cookie. I have found some ok ones but not THE one.
And you're right; molasses has this special property that keeps cookies soft. I made chocolate chip molasses cookies for a white elephant in mid December. The person who received my cookies admitted that he didn't eat them until just a few days ago and they were still very soft and delicious, not stale at all.
The Little Loaf-- Raw cookie dough is one of my vices, too. :)
Argone-- You're welcome!
Laura-- That red "table" is a slab of barnwood the size of a placemat. Love these thrift store finds! Only I wish they were bigger. :)
Rose-- Let me know how they turned out!
Carolina-- I hope you find them to your liking!
Becca-- I agree! Cookies and milk every day could possibly bring about world peace. Wow, that is a long time for a molasses cookie to last! I'm beginning to think molasses is a wonder ingredient.
Thankyou for this great recipie. I am from Australia.
Would like to ask you if I can also make these into chocolate and if so, what quantity of cocoa shall I add.
I just wanted to know if you had any suggestion or know anything about cooking at a higher altitude? Kind of 8k feet.The thing is the cookies came out ultra-rhin, thiner than the chocolate chips! I'm thinking it might be because of the altitude where I live. They started ok when I put them on the oven, about half way through after I opened the oven to flip the cookie sheet and closed it they started to kind of collapse and at the end they were as thin as a piece of paper. Ok, not that much but yeah, a lot.
Any input you have will be must helpful!
Oh, look! I finished writing this post and I have half the cookies left :$
(I'm going to have to try putting them in the fridge before baking so they don't spread out so much!)
I decided to try this shortening-based recipe because I found all my all-butter chocolate chip cookie recipes made the cookies too puffy and cakey/crispy, not chewy and soft and flat.
These turned out round and puffy rather than flat, but decent texture-wise-- they stay gooey. However, the flavour is totally lacking. Very bland.
I am on the quest for the perfect soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie and this could be it, if I can sweeten them a bit.
Thanks--I do love this blog and just discovered it and plan to make many of these recipes.
Never used molasses in chocolate chip cookies, and would love to see how it affects their chewiness.
I measure ingredients by weight, though, flour in particular, and wanted to ask if you're willing to say how much the 2 1/2 cups should weigh?
Thank you for posting this recipe, and for a fantastic blog!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I love mollases but I had never used it in a cookie before, excellent addition. I will be trying some of your other posted recipes for sure. Can't wait to see what other creations you come up with : )