There are probably thousands, if not millions of recipes out there for chocolate chip cookies. There was a time when I just used the Toll House recipe from the back of the Nestle Chocolate Chips package. Then Crisco changed its formula to eliminate trans fats, and baked goods just haven’t been the same since. I don’t exactly bake cookies to be healthy, so what possible reason could remain for not converting all my baking recipes to all butter? Well, Snickerdoodles, for one. They just don’t taste right with butter. But everything else got converted. My poor family, having to put up with batch after batch of cookies until I was happy with the recipe!

I much prefer Ghirardelli chocolate chips for my cookies. First and foremost, they taste better. A nice side benefit is that they’re a little smaller – which means there are more of them! So every bite has plenty of chocolate.

About half an hour at room temperature is usually enough to soften the butter. You don’t want it too soft, or your cookies will be flat. Still tasty, just flat. It was hot & muggy the day I baked two full batches. I took the butter for both out of the fridge at the same time, so it was way too soft for the second batch. See the difference?

I was a little slow to start measuring my flour by weight instead of volume. Then I wound up with a batch of unpalatably dry cookies one day, and made the switch. Here’s why:  When I measured 2+2/3 cups of flour, I wound up with 92 grams extra flour! Here you can see how much space in the measuring cup had to be unfilled in order to end up with the right amount in the bowl. 

Here’s another little trick: I like to use a little prep bowl for the eggs. It’s so much easier to see and remove any little bits of shell, without having to fish around in the big bowl full of other ingredients. Tired of chasing the bit of shell around, trying to catch it? Try wetting your finger first. The shell will now sit still while you quite easily get hold of it!

Let’s get started. You’ll find a printer-friendly version of the recipe at the bottom of this page.

Ingredients:

300 grams all-purpose flour (2⅔ cup, if you don’t have a scale)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp kosher salt

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

1¾ tsp vanilla

2 large eggs

1 (12-ounce) package Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

1.) Preheat oven to 375°F. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2.) Mix butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla; beat until creamy.

3.) Beat in eggs.

4.) Add flour mixture; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Don’t worry if they have a little of that white on them – it’s not going to affect your cookies at all, in taste or appearance.

5.) Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. I like to set up a couple of extra parchments, so that I can just swap them out with a just-baked batch, & get the next one into the oven that much faster. I also always re-use the parchment for the next batch after that.

6.) Bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the cookies sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.