What is the trick to chewy chocolate chip cookies??

Among many factors, brown sugar and browned or melted butter help produce cookies with soft centers. Also, toward the end of baking, remove your cookies from the oven once the edges are set but the centers still look slightly undercooked. The residual heat will continue to cook them as they cool on the sheet pan, which keeps them nice and chewy and more soft than crisp.

What makes a cookie soft and thick or thin and crispy?

A cookie's chewiness or crispiness depends a lot on the ratio of ingredients in it. For instance, if you wanted a chocolate chip cookie with more spread, which will also tend to be on the crispier side, look for a recipe that uses mostly granulated (white) sugar. Brown sugar, on the other hand, contains more liquid in it, which is key in making a more moist and chewy cookie. However, these aren't hard and fast rules for *every* cookie recipe because the role of sugar changes a bit with the ingredients around it. You can read more about each kind of sugar in this fascinating article from Serious Eats .

What's the best way to store these cookies?

These cookies will still taste fresh for 2-3 days at room temperature in an air-tight container. If you don't need this many cookies at once (this recipe makes about 40 cookies), you could halve the recipe. Alternatively, one of my favorite things to do is make all of this dough at once and set aside a few cookie dough balls (slightly smaller than a golf ball) in an airtight container in the freezer. I can bring them out to bake them whenever cookie cravings hit! You can also store already-baked cookies in your freezer for up to 3 months.

Easy Big Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

Big Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies with Brown Butter

big batch chocolate chip cookies on a baking sheet with white parchment paper underneath, surrounded by pieces of chocolate

Print Recipe

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5 from 4 reviews

Brown butter, oats, and chocolate chunks make these big batch chocolate chip cookies a crowd-pleaser. They're soft, chewy, and easy to make.

Author: Susan Gravatt
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 13 minutes
Total Time: 90 minutes
Yield: About 40 cookies 1x
Category: Dessert
Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale

2 ½ cups (310 grams) assorted dark and milk chocolate (not commercial chips), roughly chopped
2 ½ cups (225 grams) old fashioned oats
2 cups (264 grams) all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
2 ½ sticks (284 grams) unsalted butter for browning
3/4 cup (150 grams) white sugar
1 cup (190 grams) firmly packed (either light or dark) brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling (for regular table salt, use about half as much)
Pinch of grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs (about 50g), straight from the fridge

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Instructions

Browning your butter

Brown your sticks of butter over medium heat (approximately 8-12 minutes). Stir occasionally and watch as the butter begins to foam and becomes golden brown. Monitor closely to avoid any burning. Once it smells nutty and becomes amber in color, remove it from the stovetop.
Pour your browned butter into a heat-resistant container and place it in the freezer to expedite the cooling process for the next 15-20 minutes while you move ahead with this recipe. When you next use the butter, you’ll want it to be cool. It will likely have formed a sort of shell on its surface but be liquid-y beneath. That's fine.

Baking your cookies

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and start measuring out all your ingredients besides your brown butter, which should be cooling in the freezer.
Place old fashioned oats into a food processor or blender and pulse until finely powdered. Set aside in a large bowl.
Add your two cups of spooned and leveled flour to your bowl of finely powdered oats.
Roughly chop your bars of chocolate and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the cooled brown butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, nutmeg, baking powder, and baking soda. Start on a low speed to moisten, then increase speed to medium until batter is well combined, about 5 minutes. You may need to pause the mixer and scrape down the sides of your bowl halfway through the process to ensure your ingredients are incorporated.
Stop the mixer and add one egg as well as half of your flour/oat mixture. Beat until smooth before adding the second egg and other half of the flour and pulsed oats. Beat for about one minute.
Stop the mixer to add your chocolate and beat for another 15-30 seconds.
Scoop golf-ball sized portions of your cookie dough onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets, with about 2 inches between each of them. Bake for 13 minutes. 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.

Notes

If you’ve previously made this dough and are pulling it from your freezer, add 1-2 minutes of baking time, depending on your preference for crispiness vs. chewiness in your cookie.
For a seasonal twist, feel free to put some holiday-themed M&Ms into the dough in place of your chopped chocolate bars. They add color, crunch, and fun to these already tasty cookies! I will sometimes use about half of the amount of chocolate bars (so roughly 150 grams) and let M&Ms help me reach 310 grams of chocolate in total. But tweak it to your liking - I definitely recommend trying out this substitution sometime, though!

Find it online: https://susanbringsdessert.com/chocolate-chunk-oatmeal-cookies/