These chocolate chip sugar cookies are a nice twist on classic chocolate chip cookies and traditional cut-out sugar cookies. Break out your cookie cutters of any shape for making these cookies into themed bakes during the holiday season or any occasion all-year long.
Ingredients for these Delicious Cookies
The recipe card contains all the steps for making this easy recipe (and you likely already have these basic ingredients), but below are highlights:
- Pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste – Vanilla adds a sweet taste and aroma to these chewy chocolate chip cookies.
- Brown sugar – This ingredient adds chewiness to this spin on a classic cookie.
- Buttercream frosting - These cookies are great without frosting, but I include optional instructions for making buttercream, my favorite way to decorate cookies. Royal icing would work, too.
- Mini chocolate chips - Mini chips disperse into the cookie dough more easily than regular-sized ones. Plus, when you roll out the cookies, you'll have an easier time cutting through smaller chips.
No-Chill Dough
Wrapping your cookie dough in plastic wrap and letting it rest before baking can be an important step in some recipes for traditional sugar cookies.
But these cookies don't really spread during baking, so no need to chill the dough.
Learn more about the merits of resting dough in this post from Bon Appétit.
Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookie Dough Recipe
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Using a metal paddle attachment, cream unsalted room temperature butter, vanilla and almond extract, and sugars together in your mixing bowl with an electric or hand mixer for 3 minutes.
Stop the mixer, and use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure ingredients are all mixing together. Then add salt, baking powder, as well as your eggs and flour. Mix for about 1 minute on medium speed.
Add mini chips to bowl and mix until fully incorporated. Dough will initially look crumbly but pull together.
Next, I spread a silicone mat or two onto my kitchen counter, flour them, and use these for rolling out my dough with my rolling pin. I divide dough into halves or thirds, working with it in two or three waves. I find it easier to roll dough in smaller portions at a time.
Once the dough is flattened and roughly a quarter of an inch thick, press your cookie cutter into it and peel away the excess. Feel free to use seasonal shapes, like Christmas trees, Easter rabbits, or Valentine's Day hearts, to name a few options.
Use a spatula to lift and transfer dough onto an ungreased aluminum cookie sheet, with about 2 inches between each of them. Or do what I do and space out the cookies on silicon mats and slide those onto each baking sheet.
If you don't have baking mats, no need to line sheet pan with anything else.
Bake cookies for 11-14 minutes (bake time is longer time for larger cookies, shorter for small ones). They'll be a faint golden brown once done.
Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack after they’ve sat on the baking sheets 5 or so minutes outside of the oven and are firm enough to handle.
Repeat these steps with the rest of the dough until you've made all your chocolate chip sugar cookies.
Optional Buttercream for these Chocolate Sugar Cookies
If you enjoy decorating sugar cookies, use this buttercream for covering your cookies. Or put a layer of frosting between them to make cookie sandwiches!
With an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, combine unsalted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, heavy cream, and salt for about 3 minutes.
If too sweet for your liking, add a splash of lemon juice and taste test.
Once happy with flavor, drag the spatula throughout the bowl for 3-4 minutes to smooth out frosting.
Now, you may dye your frosting for Christmas time, another holiday, or keep it white.
Optional Ways to Decorate these Delicious Sugar Cookies
Once cookies have cooled on a wire rack, place frosting into a piping bag fitted with the tip of your choice, and use it to decorate cookies with rows or rings of frosting.
I baked and frosted few different heart-shaped cookies for Valentine's Day, dipping some in a plate of light pink sanding sugar.
You could also make small cookie sandwiches with buttercream between them. There are lots of possibilities!
FAQ for this Sugar Cookie Recipe
Cookies can spread if the dough is too moist or has an excessive amount of baking soda.
If you follow this recipe, though, you won't have spreading issues.
Generally, adding a bit of baking powder or flour to a cookie's dough can help prevent them from spreading as much. Chilling dough before baking it is another method to prevent spreading.
These cookies will stay fresh at room temperature (around 70°F ) for 3-4 days.
These cookies also freeze well, frosted or unfrosted. If you've frosted them, give the buttercream time to crust before freezing. This hardened texture will only form if the room is not too hot or humid (room temperature or slightly cooler is great). The crust keeps the design from getting smudged.
After crust has formed, place cookies in a single layer in an airtight container. Gently add wax or parchment paper on top of the first cookie layer so frosting doesn't get caught on other cookies or frosting.
Cookies will retain their flavor for about three months in the freezer. For best cookies, let them come to room temperature before serving.
General Tips for Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Use a scale for accuracy in your baking. This ensures exact measurements and that your cookies will turn out how the recipe intended.
- Periodically check the freshness of your leavening agents. Mix a pinch of baking powder with hot water. For baking soda, combine it with a few drops of something acidic, like vinegar or lemon juice. If your leavening agents have no reaction (i.e. no fizzing or bubbling), it means they also won't help your ingredients rise during the baking process.
- Before starting a recipe, clear your workspace and set out all your ingredients in front of you. This will make it less likely that you'll forget to leave something important out of your mixing bowl.
More Dessert Recipes
Need more cookie recipes? Try these brown butter sugar cookies for something delicious yet simple.
These pink sugar cookies are also fun to make and taste like strawberry!
Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookies
Soft and chewy, these chocolate chip sugar cookies are a fun twist on classic chocolate chip cookies and traditional cut-out sugar cookies.
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Decorating Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 14 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 30 sugar cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
Chocolate Chip Sugar Cookie Dough
- 12 T butter (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups + 2 T (380 grams) all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- ⅔ cup (150 grams) white sugar
- ½ cup (90 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 T vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cold, large eggs, straight from the fridge
- ½ cup (100 grams) mini chocolate chips
Optional Buttercream for Decorating
- 6 cups (750 grams) powdered sugar
- 1 ½ sticks (170 grams) of unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup (150 grams) heavy cream* (See notes)
- 4 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- Lemon juice to cut sweetness
- Food gels to dye your frosting
Instructions
Sugar Cookie Dough
- Preheat your oven to 350 °F.
- Cream butter, vanilla extract, and sugars together in your mixing bowl for 3 minutes.
- Stop the mixer and add salt, baking powder, as well as your eggs and flour. Mix for about 1 minute on medium speed before adding chocolate chips to bowl and mixing another minute. Dough will initially look crumbly but pull together.
- Roll the dough into a ball on a clean, flat, floured surface. I like dividing half at a time and rolling it out to about ¼ inch before pressing the cookie cutters into the dough.
- Use a spatula to lift and transfer dough onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets, with about 2 inches between each of them. Bake for 10-14 minutes (longer time for larger cookies, shorter for small ones). Transfer them to cooling racks after they’ve sat on the baking sheets 5 or so minutes outside of the oven and are firm enough to handle.
Optional Buttercream Frosting
- With an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, combine unsalted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, heavy cream, lemon juice (if using), and salt. Beat for about 3 minutes.
- Taste test and then add another splash of lemon juice if too sweet.
- Once happy with flavor, drag the spatula from the middle of your bowl to its edges, watching as the tears and bubbles in your buttercream disappear. Spend 3-4 minutes doing these motions to achieve nice, smooth frosting.
- If using, add food gel color(s) to bowl(s) of buttercream.
Cookie Assembly
- Load buttercream into piping bags, fitted with tips of your choice.
- Create rings or rows of frosting across or around your cookies. Alternatively, use buttercream between cookies to create cookie sandwiches.
- Freeze any excess buttercream for up to three months in an airtight container.
Notes
Regarding the buttercream: When my kitchen is colder, I add more liquid to my bowl. The moisture helps colder, stiffer ingredients mix together more easily. If your kitchen is humid and/or warm, start with about ⅓ cup (80 grams) of heavy cream and add more from there.
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