The most popular cookie recipe on the internet is chocolate chip. I'm so glad you found us today! You'll be in good hands with our expert chefs who have made countless delicious treats, like these Chocolate Chip Cookies that Le Cordon Bleu culinary school students were in amazement about how great it turned out.
The cookies turn out chewy with a crispy sugary bottom. Light and airy sugary goodness. The centers are chewy and soft.
Do you love chocolate? Give these recipes a try: Butterfinger Cheesecake Brownies, or Ultimate Fudge Brownies | Award Winning Le Cordon Bleu

⬇️ Table of Contents
- How To Make the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
- When Was Chocolate Chip cookies Invented
- 🥘 Ingredients
- 📋 How To Make Pastry Flour
- 🔪 Instructions
- 📖 Cookie Shape? Flat/Thick/Tall
- How Long To Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
- Why Are My Cookies Too Flat?
- Are Chocolate Chip Cookies Homogeneous or Heterogeneous?
- Cookie Flour Substitutes
- 📖 Recipe Card
How To Make the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
The first thing that makes this recipe better than most is using the correct type of flour for baking chocolate chip cookies. Online, 96% of the recipes suggest using All-Purpose flour.
That's ok for average chocolate chip cookies, yet not ok with the world's mentor of "baking and pastry culinary technique." The French, who the book on culinary/baking technique.
The inherent problem with All-Purpose flour is the amount of protein in the flour, around 10-13%. Too much protein creates a dense cookie. The texture is firmer and denser. We have all enjoyed cookies made with All-Purpose flour.
But let's make the BEST chocolate chip cookies in the world. How?
When Was Chocolate Chip cookies Invented
The chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Wakefield in the 1930s. She was the owner of the Toll House Inn, a popular restaurant in Massachusetts. The cookies became so popular that she began selling them in her restaurant and soon became known as "Toll House Cookies."
🥘 Ingredients
Using the correct ingredients will make all the difference with your cookie recipe.
- Pastry Flour (recipe to make follows)
- Butter
- Eggs
- Fine White Sugar
- Brown Sugar
- Vanilla Extract
- Sea Salt
- Baking Soda
- Chocolate Chips
- ½ cup Walnuts / optional
- Nutmeg / optional
📋 How To Make Pastry Flour
Today, I will teach you how to make something very easy at home in your kitchen. It's called Pastry flour. Please do not confuse Pastry flour with Cake flour.
Cake flour is very light and milled to the finest texture, just like a fine powder. Think of Pastry flour as the perfect balance of All-Purpose & Cake flour.
The perfect chocolate chip cookie has a protein level of around 8% to 9%.
The goal of making pastry flour is to achieve the perfect protein level. I have two methods, both equally easy.
- First Method: Take 2 Cups of Cake flour and add 1 cup of All-Purpose flour - That's it you're done ( Important: Please make sure you stiff the flour to combine).
- Second Method: Take 1 cup of All-Purpose flour into a bowl. Next, remove 2 tablespoons of the flour and discard. Then replace the removed 2 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. ( Important: Please make sure you stiff the flour to combine)
🤔 The question that arises is which method is better?
The second method has been around for a very long time and works. Yet is not as good as method #1.
You can see the difference between cake flour and pastry flour. The pastry flour has a slightly darker color than the finely milled Cake flour.
The darker color comes from the additional protein in the flour.
TIP: You can scale up the Pastry flour recipe and make yourself a supply for future baking. Measurement by x2, x3 whatever amount you need.
NOTE: Pastry flour is not easy to find at your local grocery store.
🔪 Instructions
- Add ¾ cup of brown sugar to the kitchen aid mixer. You can easily use a hand mixer and a large bowl.
2) Add fine white sugar - ¾ of a cup.
3) Add 2 whole eggs plus one egg yolk
4) Add 1 whole stick plus half of another stick - 6oz total
5) Cream ingredients together. Attach the paddle attachment, turn the machine on low speed (1 or 2), and mix for 2 plus minutes.
Some believe mixing longer improves the texture of the cookies. Around 5 minutes ⏲️
6) Add 1 whole tablespoon of vanilla extract. Yes, one full tablespoon ✅
Add the vanilla extract after the first mix, do not just add it to the sugar and butter during the first mix. #foodscience
7) Sift the flour and baking soda. This step will reduce the risk of lumps in the flour. You probably noticed I did not include baking powder. Baking powder will cause your cookies to puff up like muffins and honestly mess up the overall texture.
8) Now the good stuff: Adding Ghirardelli bittersweet 60 percent cacao and Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips to the cookie dough. The balance of both chocolates creates a flavor profile like no other. #betterthantheneighbors ✅
📖 Cookie Shape? Flat/Thick/Tall
A popular question for sure. What makes the cookies flat or sit tall and thick?
- Don't Do: If you add baking powder, the cookies will "overly" puff up and create a cake-like texture.
- Too much sugar will cause cookies to flatten out. Once the sugars are super hot, they begin to counterbalance the leavening agents like baking soda.
- Easiest TIP Ever: Get the cookie dough super cold before scooping and shaping. This increases the cooking time by 1 to 3 minutes. The effect is the cookie dough has to cool off/cook in the oven longer, resulting in a longer time to flatten out/deflate.
- Use a cookie scooper, a large one with natural height, and make sure the cookie dough is super cold out of the freezer (Pictured recipe below: 2 Tablespoons of Cocoa Powder added to the original recipe - So Good).
- Do not use parchment paper or risk not getting crispy bottoms on the cookies. They are called cookie sheets for a good reason.
- TIP: For extra chocolate flavor and to help control the equal distribution of chocolate chips. I like to press in a few chips in places where it looks appropriate.
How Long To Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how long to bake chocolate chip cookies. The cooking time will vary depending on the recipe, the type and size of the cookie, and the oven. However, as a general rule, chocolate chip cookies should be baked for between 10 and 15 minutes.
Why Are My Cookies Too Flat?
There are a few reasons why your cookies might be coming out too flat. It could be that you're not using enough flour, or that you're not creaming the butter and sugar together long enough. If your dough is too warm, that could also be causing your cookies to spread too much.
Make sure to chill the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before baking to help prevent this. Lastly, make sure you're using fresh baking powder - if it's old, it won't work as well and your cookies will be flat.
Are Chocolate Chip Cookies Homogeneous or Heterogeneous?
There are different types of chocolate chip cookies, which can be classified as either homogeneous or heterogeneous mixtures. For example, a chocolate chip cookie with evenly distributed chocolate chips throughout would be considered a homogeneous mixture, while a cookie with chocolate chips only on the top would be considered a heterogeneous mixture.
Cookie Flour Substitutes
All-Purpose
Cake Flour
Pastry Flour
Rye Flour
Soy Flour
Oat Flour
Whole Wheat Flour
Self Rising Flour
Acorn Flour
Almond Flour
Amaranth Flour
Apple Flour
Banana Flour
Bean Flour
Brown Rice Flour
Buckwheat Flour
Cassava Flour
Chestnut Flour
Chickpea Flour
Coconut flour
Cornmeal flour
Cornstarch flour
Hemp flour
Peanut flour
Potato starch flour
Potato flour
Rice flour
Sorghum flour
Tapioca flour
Teff Flour
📖 Recipe Card
Chocolate Chip Cookies - Le Cordon Bleu Recipe
Suggested Equipment
Ingredients
Making Pastry Flour
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup Cornstarch
Mix Together
- 2 ¼ cups Pastry Flour Yes, you can use AP-Flour, yet the cookie texture will be denser
- 1 ½ sticks Butter
- 3 Eggs / 2 whole eggs + extra yolk
- ¾ cup Fine White Sugar
- ¾ cup Brown Sugar
- 1 T Vanilla Extract / yes 1 tablespoon
- 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 ¼ cups Chocolate Chips / mix of semi-bitter & milk chocolate
- ½ cup Walnuts / optional
- ⅛ teaspoon Nutmeg / optional
Instructions
Making The Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Creaming: the butter, the sugar, and eggs together. Using a KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment works best.Chef Tip: creaming the butter and sugar together takes longer than just mixing them together. You need to do this for at least 3 minutes. Some say long enough for the mixing bowl to get warm (not necessary) the sugar hydrates and softens in texture. The mix will lighten in color.Then add in the vanilla, not before. 1 tablespoon
- Pastry flour: First Method: Take 2 Cups of Cake flour and add 1 cup of All-Purpose flour - That's it..you're done ( Important: Please make sure you stiff the flour to combine).Second Method: Take 1 cup of All-Purpose flour into a bowl. Next, remove 2 tablespoons of the flour and discard. Then replace the removed 2 tablespoons of flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. ( Important: Please make sure you stiff the flour to combine)Add salt, and baking soda and sift with the pastry flour. Please make sure you sift your dry ingredients.Then add the sifted dry to the wet ingredients. Mix in ⅓ of the pastry flour at a time. After ⅔rds of the pastry flour is added, go ahead and add in the chocolate chips. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients. Please add more chocolate chips if you wish.
- Chef Tip: To ensure your cookies turn out great, Do NOT over mix once the pastry flour has been added. Just like when making biscuits. The longer you work the cookie dough the tougher the cookies become. #glutendevelopment
- Cookie Setup: Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes. Longer is better if you enjoy a taller, thicker cookie. Cookie dough that isn't cold will flatten out quickly once in the oven.This gluten in the dough has a chance to relax. This will offer a more tender cookie.
- Baking Instructions: cook on a cookie sheet without any parchment paper. The parchment paper steals the texture of the bottom of the cookie. Which is the best part. #noparchementpaperIt's called a cookie sheet for a reasonTry to place the cookies a few inches apart from each other on the cookie sheet. The cookies will expand while cooking. I placed 6 cookies at a time on the cookie sheet.Chef Tip: If you want to try to reduce that effect you can bake the cookies at a higher temperature and the cookies will set quicker, reducing the spread of the cookie.Bake Cookies @ 350 for 14 minutes or golden brown and delicious. Check the cookies after 11 minutes of baking to make sure everything is going perfectly.
Penny
Hi, your recipe says 2 cups
Purpose flour & 1 cup CORNSTARCH. Isn’t it suppose to be 1 cup cake flour?
Steven Pennington
Cornstarch is the ingredient that lightens the texture of the cookies. Cake flour is a finely milled flour with a lower gluten(protein) percentage. The difference is the cornstarch creates space between each fiber of the all-purpose flour.
Cake flour becomes an additional gluten structure between the flour fibers but with a different texture(mismatch), that promotes gummy/glue cookies. Pastry flour is the best baker's choice.
(All-purpose flour + Cornstarch)
Susie
Can’t wait to make these!
Steven Pennington
I still have a small amount in the refrigerator. I think today is the day to bake them.