Who doesn’t love a warm chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven? With the fall season upon us, you may be getting ready to whip up a batch of cookies with your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Before you break out the mixing bowls, consider the following tips for making your trusted cookie recipe even better.
Upgrade Your Chocolate
Chocolate is the centerpiece of the chocolate chip cookie, so don’t settle for a bag of ultra-processed chocolate chips from the supermarket. Instead, use high-quality chocolate bars and chop them up yourself. Coarsely chopped chocolate will give you larger pockets of molten chocolate in your warm cookies and offer a much deeper, more complex flavor to make your cookies more delicious and sophisticated.
Brown Your Butter
Most chocolate chip cookie recipes use butter—and lots of it. The butter can bring even more flavor to the party if you take the time to brown it first. Browning butter involves heating it over medium heat until the milk solids begin to brown to a deep tan hue. The result is a toasty, nutty flavor that shines through in the final recipe.
Add Extra Vanilla
Vanilla extract is another primary flavoring agent for chocolate chip cookies, and adding a little extra to your recipe can have delicious results. Just 1/2 teaspoon of additional vanilla extract can turn your cookies into something special. And don’t skimp on the quality of your vanilla. Choose pure vanilla extract rather than the imitation stuff.
Chill Your Dough
Instead of scooping your dough from the mixing bowl and popping it directly into the oven, give the dough time to rest in the fridge. This will allow the fats in the dough to firm up as the sugar and flour absorb more moisture. The result is a firmer dough that spreads slower once it’s exposed to heat, so you get chewier cookies that don’t spread thin on the pan. You can even make a double batch of dough and freeze half in pre-scooped portions so that you have cookies on demand, ready to bake at a moment’s notice.
When you need high quality chocolate for your favorite recipes—or to enjoy as a treat on its own—look no further than Zotter Chocolate. Find an extensive selection of fair traded, bean to bar chocolate in our online store, available to ship directly to your door with our no-melt guarantee.