Best milk chocolate Chip Cookies recipe

My mom has been making the same chocolate chip cookies for over 20 years. They’re a serious hit around the holidays and they fly off the plate faster than anything else we put out for our Christmas spread. That’s especially impressive if you know how enormous our Christmas spread typically is.

Everyone begs for the recipe (in between shoving them in their mouths, of course). I also gobble them down– in fact, I probably gain 5 lbs every winter from those cookies alone. I loooove those cookies.

But these are not those cookies.

These chocolate chip cookies made my mom decide that she will be abandoning her recipe that she’s used for over 2 decades. These cookies are so good that I’ve dubbed them “The Best Chewy Café-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies”. These cookies are so soft and chewy that after sitting out on the counter uncovered overnight (woops) they were STILL SOFT AND DELICIOUS IN THE MORNING. In fact, I think they were even softer the second day!

That’s some chocolate chip cookie voodoo right there.

I spent an entire day trying to perfect my chocolate chip cookie recipe– which resulted in a LOT of “close but not quite there” batches. These cookies didn’t even come out of the oven until almost 8PM– 11 hours after I started.

Let’s not talk about how much flour or chocolate chips I went through. Or what happened to all of the less-than-perfect cookies. Or how many cookies I taste-tested. No, really, let’s not talk about it.

So, like I said, these came out pretty late and it was already dark out so my photos aren’t as nice as I’d like them to be. I thought about just waiting, making another batch the next week, and rephotographing them then, but after tasting them I really didn’t want to wait even one extra day to put the recipe up. When you’ve got The Best Chewy Café-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies, you have a moral obligation to share them with the world.

I call these cookies Café-Style because they have that bumpy top that you always see on the mouth-watering cookies behind the café counter. It’s quite easy to create, actually– all you have to do is roll your cookie dough into a ball, tear it in half, and smush the two halves together, torn-side up. Voila! Bumpy, lumpy, rustic-looking cookies.

The real magic here isn’t in the bumpy tops, though. It’s the softness and chewiness of the cookies. I found that the softest cookies are created when a) you use corn \starch, b) you use melted butter, c) you chill your dough before baking, d) you take the cookies out of the oven early and let them cool on the baking sheet, and e) you adjust your cooking time based on your oven in your kitchen. Those are really the keys! Give it a try and see what a difference it makes.

After you try it, make sure to take a photo and tag #hostthetoast on Instagram and/or Twitter! I’d love to see your gorgeous Cafe-Style Cookies!

Author: Morgan

Serves: 20 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ sticks (6 oz) butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed (I used light brown sugar, but dark brown sugar will work as well if you want a more molasses-y flavor)
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1½ cups dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. Set aside.
2. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix briefly, just until there are no flour clumps left. Fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Cover and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes to an hour.
4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 325 degrees, making sure you have the racks in the middle of the oven.
5. Scoop ¼ cup of cookie dough at a time and roll into balls. Then, tear the balls in half by pulling gently on both sides. Smush the two halves together again, but this time have the lumpy, torn sides face upward. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, making sure the cookies have plenty of space to spread.
6. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating half-way through, or until the cookies have spread out and the edges are golden, but the center of the cookie still looks soft and just slightly under-cooked. Let cool on the baking sheets until the cookies are firm enough to remove. Every oven is different, so I recommend starting with just one or two cookies on the tray to see what baking time works best for you!