Our Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I previously published a version of this post in August 2019. The recipe remains unchanged, but the photography desperately needed to be updated. I hope you all enjoy this new version!

If you spend enough time in the kitchen, you can cook pretty much any recipe that someone brings you. You get used to cooking off scribbled instructions, yelled adjustments, and intuition.

And a lot of other random things. You learn that “all day” means that if there are three fillets “all day,” there are three fish fillet orders up. And you learn that it’s a whole lot easier to cook when there are tupperwares of freshly chopped ingredients littering the kitchen {where is my prep cook? oh yeah, he’s not even two yet}.

But there are the recipes that you cook all the time and commit to memory. There are the things you have done so many times that you know by look and feel and smell and, again, intuition that you’ve cooked them right, or you know what they need.

I have a few of those precious recipes. But none can be more precious than my chocolate chip cookies with fleur de sel.

The first time I made these cookies, I was probably about 7. My mom had just started teaching again full time, so we were hanging out with our teenage neighbor babysitter, and I promised her I could make the cookies from memory.

Spoiler alert – our attempt was awful. My memory wasn’t that good, and we added milk and a few other things that had no business being in those cookies. They were horrible.

When my mom came home, I sadly showed her what we’d done. Mom asked what we had put into the cookies, and we told her. And then she asked if we wanted to learn the right way to make them.

She rolled up her sleeves and put on her apron, cleaned out our big green ceramic bowl {it was the only bowl we had big enough for the recipe, and I swear, she still has it}, and showed us how to make cookies for real.

There are some simple tricks, tried and true with this recipe that can make or break your cookie.

• Cream the butter, don’t melt it. Melted butter makes cookies go flat and become dry and brittle and gross.
• Sift together the dry ingredients so that they’re evenly spread throughout the cookie.
• Don’t overmix your cookie, no matter how tempting it is to keep whipping that creamy butter. An overmixed cookie gets dry and hard and gross.
• Don’t skimp on the salt. Baked goods need their salt. You need that little bit of savory in here to balance all the sweet, which is why I sprinkle fleur de sel over the top.
• And don’t overbake them. If anything, underbake them. They’ll keep cooking a little bit after you take them out of the oven, and no one ever said no to an ooey-gooey cookie.

If you want to add an extra level of flavor to your cookie, brown your butter first. Brown butter is awesome in so many ways, and while it seems easy to make, it takes a bit of focus. You melt the butter in a small sauce pan, whisking it constantly and making sure that you keep it right at the point where it starts to foam. If it boils, you won’t get the effect you want at all!

You know brown butter is done when you smell that telltale nutty popcorn smell. It should be a beautiful rich golden brown. Take it off the heat and let it cool before you use it.

Just YUM.

So here you go. My absolute favorite chocolate chip cookies with just a little sprinkling of fleur de sel. There might be other awesome chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, but this one is straight-forward, simple, and a great place to start your kiddos on their baking journey.

That’s where I’m starting Marcus. He might only be 20 months old, but he absolutely loves standing on his learning tower with Mama and whipping batter for cake or pancakes, or stirring the chocolate chips into cookies. My little future chef – makes me proud.

Okay, let’s bake!

[lt_recipe name=”Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies” summary=”Simple and sweet, easy yet beautifully gooey, buttery, and complex chocolate chip cookies – the perfect treat. Pair with milk or your morning coffee for an instant pick-me-up.” servings=”2 dozen cookies” total_time=”25M” print=”yes” image=”https://homefrontcooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/White-Mint-Hot-Chocolate-0344-1024×683.jpg” ingredients=”1 cup butter, softened {not melted};1 cup granulated sugar;1/2 cup brown sugar;2 eggs;2 tsp vanilla;2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour;1 tsp baking soda;1/2 tsp salt;2 cups semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips;fleur de sel for sprinkling” ]Preheat oven to 375F. Line two pans with parchment paper or baking mats and set aside.;Cream the softened butter in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until it is fluffy.;Beat the sugars into the butter until the mixture is soft and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat to combine. Beat in the vanilla.;In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the mixture by cupfuls to the wet ingredients until combined and fluffy.;Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.;Using a spoon or a cookie scoop, portion out the cookie dough onto the pans so that the balls of dough are about 1-1/2″ round. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.;Bake at 375F for 7-9 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.;Cool the cookies on a cooling rack or parchment paper.[/lt_recipe]

Just delicious!

As you all might have seen above, this is a previously published recipe but with brand new photos. I love this recipe and wanted to take it up a notch. I feel like I’m starting to come into my own more with my food photos, and would love to hear what you think!

So how about you? What are those recipes you’ve cooked a thousand times, tried and tested and perfected?