Ultimate Chocolate Cookies from Baking with Blondie

Ultimate Chocolate Cookies - made dough July 12, 2022 from Baking with Blondie 

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs, cold

1 tablespoon vanilla 

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 410 degrees F (not on a convection setting). Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter for 1 minute until light and fluffy. Add brown sugar and granulated sugar; cream together for 3 minutes on high speed. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
3. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
4. Add flour, cocoa, cornstarch, baking soda and salt, mixing on lowest setting until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Reserve a handful of each type of chips then fold in the rest into the cookie dough.
6. Portion dough evenly into 8 large dough balls. Hand press the reserved chips over the dough balls and evenly space 4 cookie dough balls onto each sheet.
7. Bake for 9-10 minutes then remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 1 minute. Transfer to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Where are my chocoholics? Break out your baking sheets because you're going to want to make these cookies right now. And unlike 99% of the cookie recipes I post, I'm going to give you the good news that you don't even have to chill or freeze these first to get a chubby cookie. Yes, they'll still bake nice and thick.

I made this cookie dough in hot (>100 degrees) weather and the dough still handled beautifully. Not too soft or sticky but just right. Of course you do have to start with butter cold from the refrigerator but even better because you don't have to wait for the butter to soften to room temperature either.

They may not look "that thick" in these pictures but that's just the angle of the photos. Trust me. Or don't trust me but scroll all the way to the last picture of this post to get the full view of the inside and the thickness. And that cookie was the test cookie I baked as soon as I made the dough, without chilling it.

I only baked off one test cookie when I first made the dough. I portioned out the rest and froze those to bake later when I was making up care packages for Soldiers Angels.  I followed the original recipe directions to only make 8 cookie dough balls. Because you want these big.

In fact, each cookie was so big that I only ate half of the test cookie after baking and cooling. Never fear though, I went back for the other half the next day. It was so good. Perfectly chocolate with that thick-cookie texture I love. 

A few cautionary notes: do bake these at 410 degrees. Yes, that's high for cookies but it's how to get the outside to set and have a crust while the inside remains soft and fudgy. The downside is your chocolate chip tips will burn a bit. Either tuck them, tip side in, into the dough or else don't do what I did and stick the chips on top before baking. Wait until after they come out of the oven then swarm those suckers with chips all over their domed tops.

Second cautionary note is you might be tempted to leave them in longer than 10 minutes, thinking the cookies couldn't possibly have baked long enough. I was afraid of that too. But see the fissures in the cookie around the edges (in the picture above)? That's done enough. 

Besides. when the cookies cool completely (and please let them cool to get the fudgy texture), they'll set and give you the best texture. The last picture says a thousand words.