Tested and perfected, these soft, chewy Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies have delightfully rugged tops, buttery brown sugar flavor, and rich chocolate in every wonderful bite. This recipe is easy to make, with no odd ingredients or dough chilling required, and takes just 30 minutes. These are the cookies that will make you famous!

Bakery style chocolate chip cookies stacked on a black metal cooling rack with glasses of milk around it.

Cookie confessional time. Although these ultra soft, long-lasting chocolate chip cookies are the ones my family most often requests, my personal favorite is a different recipe. So yes, I cheat on that family favorite from time to time. There, the secret is out!

My choice? This classic, chewy, brown sugar and butter-laced cookie, studded with a very generous scoop of chocolate chips. I’ll take mine with dark chocolate any day, but you absolutely won’t go wrong with traditional semi-sweet or even a combination of dark, semi-sweet, and milk chocolate.

This recipe hails from Cook’s Illustrated, where they are described as Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. Although superlatives are terribly overused in recipe descriptions, I have to say that in this instance I believe it’s deserved.

These are tender cookies, with a chewy, moist center and very slightly crisp edges. Using melted butter emphasizes the chewiness — and conveniently eliminates the need to warm butter at room temperature in advance. Using somewhat less flour than your average chocolate chip cookie recipe, and only one full egg plus one egg yolk, delivers a fabulous texture and opens the door for a star ingredient to shine through.

Ingredient Notes

That star ingredient is brown sugar: you’ll use double the amount of brown sugar as granulated in this recipe. Brown sugar generally contributes to a chewier texture and a light molasses flavor in baked goods, so these cookies get that benefit in full force. I prefer light brown sugar in this recipe, but either light or dark will work well.

What’s the best chocolate to use in chocolate chip cookies?

The short answer: the chocolate you have!

  • On Quality: Of course, using a high-quality chocolate is always going to result in a subtly enhanced flavor for your chocolate chip cookies. Ghirardelli and Guittard are relatively high-end brands that are still accessible and available in most everyday grocery stores. That said, I have made many amazing batches of cookies with good old Nestles chocolate and store brands, as well. Literally never has anyone said, “oh, that other batch had better chocolate.” Use what you have, use what’s affordable.
  • On Cocoa/Sugar Content: Semi-sweet chocolate is the standard and usual type of chips or chunks used in chocolate chip cookies. Dark chocolate is also absolutely wonderful, as long as you stay at or below roughly 75% cocoa content. If the percentage is higher than that, you’re looking at a very bittersweet chocolate that may not be to everyone’s taste. Milk chocolate chips are very sweet, as they have a high proportion of sugar added to the cocoa, and are often too sweet for most people’s taste in cookies.

Can I mix different types of chocolate in cookies?

Yes, absolutely! Try using half dark chocolate chips and half semi-sweet, or mostly dark chocolate with a small handful of milk chocolate for contrast. You can also mix and match chips with chocolate chunks. In fact, this is a trick bakeries supposedly use to make their cookies more interesting and complex in flavor.

On that note…

What makes a cookie bakery style?

There’s not consensus on what makes a cookie “bakery style,” because of course you can find different types of cookies at different bakeries across the country and world. That said, in general, you can imagine a bakery style cookie as thick, chewy, rather large, and packed with a large amount of chocolate chips or other mix-ins, so that you’re sure to get the signature flavors in each and every bite.

This is not scientific, but many classic bakeries also offer cookies with an appealingly rugged top, one with hills, valleys, and a few cracks. This is purely a matter of personal preference, but if you also enjoy that look and texture, these cookies have a simple shaping method that adds little time but delivers that effect with perfect precision and reliability.

Bakery style chocolate chip cookies stacked on a black metal cooling rack with glasses of milk around it.

How To Make Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
  • Combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, and melted butter. Mix very well. This is easiest with a stand mixer fitted with its paddle attachment, but you can also use a hand mixer or stir vigorously with a rubber spatula, if needed.
  • Add one whole egg, one additional egg yolk, and a generous two teaspoons of vanilla extract. Again, mix very well.
  • Sprinkle on the dry ingredients and mix just until even. Add chocolate and mix even more gently.
Close up of dough for bakery style chocolate chip cookies in a clear glass mixing bowl.

I honestly can’t blame you if you sample the dough at this point. I know we’re not supposed to, but truth be told, I sneak a spoonful every time.

You do not need to refrigerate this cookie dough! If you want to store the dough in the fridge and bake later, however, it’s no problem. Simply allow the dough to come at least partially back to room temperature to make it easier to shape and bake.

How do bakeries make their cookies the same size?

It’s easy to make cookies uniform and evenly-sized with a simple tool: an ice cream or cookie scoop. Simply fill the scoop with dough, scrape off any excess by running the scoop against the inner edge of the bowl, and release dough onto prepared baking sheet. Each cookie will be exactly the same size. As a bonus, once you get the hang of it, this is much faster than portioning cookie dough with a spoon.

For this recipe, I like to use a large, 3 tablespoon dough scoop, and make each scoop a heaping one, because you’ll split each in half as follows.

How to make cookies with ragged tops?

After forming dough balls, roll them between your palms into a nice, round shape. Then grab that round with both sets of your fingertips, rotate each end in opposite directions, towards and away from you, and gently pull apart each hemisphere away from the other. You’ll have half of the dough ball in each hand.

Place each half back on the baking sheet with the rounded side down and the ragged side up. Bake them this way, and you’ll have perfectly round cookies, with subtle but delightful crags on top.

Once these cookies bake, they just need a few moments to cool and set on the baking sheets, then they can be transferred to wire racks to cool completely — or not — before digging in.

Close up of melted chocolate inside a broken-apart bakery-style chocolate chip cookie.

Storage and Freezing

  • Storage: Baked cookies keep well at room temperature for 2-3 days, but I can virtually promise you they won’t last that long. 🙂
  • Freezing Dough Balls: After pulling apart, the balls of cookie dough can be flash frozen to bake later at your convenience. First lay them out on a parchment-lined baking sheet or plate, being sure they do not touch, and place in the freezer for 30-45 minutes. Once the dough balls are frozen solid, transfer them to a freezer bag or other storage container (they can touch at this point). When ready to bake, place frozen dough balls on lined cookie sheets and bake as directed above, adding 2-3 minutes to the baking time.

More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love

Next, try these chocolate chip mini M&M cookies or these beauties with sea salt, chocolate chips, and pistachios. Feeling more in the sugar cookie way? Amish sugar cookies, lemon sugar cookies, and soft frosted sugar cookies are always a guaranteed hit.

However you choose to get your cookie fix, I hope these recipes help brighten your day! Now excuse while I go make another batch of these chocolate chip beauties!

If you try these Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies, don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. I love hearing how recipes turn out in your kitchen, and it helps other readers, too.

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4.50 from 4 votes

Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Soft, chewy Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies with delightful rugged tops, buttery brown sugar flavor, and rich chocolate in every wonderful bite. These are the cookies that will make you famous!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons (10 5/8 oz.) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 12 Tablespoons (3/4 cup, 6 oz.) unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly 
  • 1 cup (7 oz.) packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz.) granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk 
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 and 1/2 cups dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. 
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. With an electric mixer or by hand, beat the butter and sugars until well-combined. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla extract.
  • Add dry ingredients and mix at low speed just until dough is evenly combined. Gently stir in the chocolate chips. 
  • Portion out a large scoop of dough. (You can either use a large, 3 tablespoon dough scoop to make heaping mounds, or scantly fill a 1/4 cup measuring cup.) Roll into a ball. Hold the ball in the fingertips of both hands, and twist to pull it apart into two roughly equal halves. Place the halves onto the cookie sheet, jagged surface facing up, leaving about 2 inches between the cookies.
  • Bake, rotating pans halfway through, for 12-14 minutes, just until the cookies are light golden brown with slightly hardened edges and soft, puffy centers. You want to remove them just before they look completely done, so the inside stays very tender.
  • Cool cookies on baking sheets for 10-15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.  Enjoy!

Notes

  • Freezing Dough Balls: After pulling apart, the balls of cookie dough can be flash frozen to bake later at your convenience. First lay them out on a parchment-lined baking sheet or plate, being sure they do not touch, and place in the freezer for 30-45 minutes. Once the dough balls are frozen solid, transfer them to a freezer bag or other storage container (they can touch at this point). When ready to bake, place frozen dough balls on lined cookie sheets and bake as directed above, adding 2-3 minutes to the baking time.

Nutrition Estimate

Calories: 215 kcal, Carbohydrates: 29 g, Protein: 2 g, Fat: 10 g, Saturated Fat: 6 g, Cholesterol: 17 mg, Sodium: 73 mg, Potassium: 91 mg, Fiber: 1 g, Sugar: 17 g, Vitamin A: 190 IU, Calcium: 18 mg, Iron: 1 mg
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