King Arthur Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

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Alright you guys. I’m pretty sure this is it. Like, the one. The cookie recipe I’ve been searching for. This Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour is seriously perfection.

Call me crazy, and I know we’re only 16 (with 36 left to go) recipes into the Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment, but I’m honestly tempted to look no farther! This recipe from King Arthur Flour is everything I’m looking for…

Let’s talk about qualifiers for a perfect chocolate chip cookie:

1. Must have a buttery flavor. Check.

2. Must have a teensy bit of salt in every bite. Check.

3. MUST have golden brown crispy edges. Check.

4. Must be chewy, soft, and even a little gooey in the center. Check.

5. Must be the right size. Not too big. Not too small. Check, check, check.

6. Must still be soft and delicious the next day. Yep.

7. Must have a lot of chocolate chips. Check.

And to that list, I would personally have to add… Must not take 48 hours to make or call for crazy ingredients that I have to go out and buy. But maybe that’s just me.

Even with that last caveat, these cookies meet and exceed all of the qualifications I think a Chocolate Chip Cookie must have to be a contender for THE BEST EVER. This is the lowest maintenance, best tasting, and most fool-proof recipe I’ve tried so far.

So let’s talk about what goes into these cookies and how to make them…

I’ll start off with the elephant in the room: SHORTENING.

I know, I know. It’s a four-letter word to a lot of you butter-lovin’ bakers out there. And I get it. I love butter-all-the-way as much as the next guy. But shortening really does have it’s place in the cookie-making world. Here’s why:

Butter adds the flavor. We all know this. But butter also adds water, which creates steam during baking, which causes more gluten formation = crispier cookie. Butter also has a low melting point, which means cookies made with all butter tend to spread out and flatten during baking.

Shortening, on the other hand, is completely fat– it has no water. Which means it does not increase gluten production, which makes cookies with shortening more tender and soft. It also has a higher melting point than butter, which means the cookies don’t spread as much during baking, which makes the cookies a little thicker. The downside to shortening? It doesn’t give the same flavor that butter does, and it can even leave a residue in your mouth (after eating  a cookie made with all shortening).

The trick is to find a sweet spot between the two– combining butter with shortening is really the ultimate. You get the flavor, crispiness, and some spreading from the butter. And you get soft centers (that last) and thickness from the shortening. And when shortening comprises only half of the fat, you won’t get that unpleasant residue in your mouth.

Another interesting factoid about this recipe? It calls for a little bit of vinegar! Sort of weird, but it works. The vinegar speeds up the baking soda reaction to (supposedly, according to King Arthur Flour) give these cookies a little bit of an extra lift.

Another major thing that I love about this recipe is that it is SUPER low maintenance. No dough chilling necessary (although they do mention that chilling the dough for at least 12 hours will deepen the flavor– I stuck a few extra dough balls in the fridge for later). Also, it’s a very toss-everything-in-and-mix kind of recipe. I mean, you still have to add the egg and the flour in their own steps. But you don’t have to mix the dry ingredients separately, or beat the butter and sugars until they’re some unattainable degree of “fluffy” and a vaguely “light yellow” color.

Annnnnnnnd– I love this part— you can use butter straight from the fridge. No softening required! It makes absolutely no difference. None. Isn’t that awesome?

I hate softening butter. Because I always forget. And then I have to microwave, and I always end up over-nuking it and melting the butter, and blah, blah, blah.

Anyway. Can you see why I love this recipe?! Really, it’s practically perfect in every way. It’s zipped to the top of my favorites list in the Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment, for sure. I’m looking forward to trying out the next 36 recipes, but I have to say… the bar has been raised!

Note: before you make these cookies, be sure to click over to check out my tutorial on How to Scoop the Perfect Cookie. It sounds obvious, but the right kind of “scooping” will make a huge difference in how these cookies turn out!