Alton Brown’s The Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Alton Brown’s The Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are pretty big and thick, leaving you with dense, moist, and wonderfully chewy cookies that have so much flavor from the use of brown sugar and bread flour.
When I set out to find the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, I really meant it! The thing is, I love crispy and chewy cookies. The fact though is that, what makes a particular chocolate chip cookie the best for one person, is not the same for another. I see a lot of people who prefer soft and chewy types and I wanted to find the best recipe to describe those textures. That is how I ended up finding this Alton Brown’s The Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe.
It is a well-known recipe for producing chewy cookies. And I was glad to find the recipe because they tasted heavenly. I found that most cookie recipes I had tried fell in comparison to this recipe because I found most of them too cakey to my liking, but these cookies produce the perfect chewy texture with the perfect sweetness.
What Makes These Cookies Chewy?
Although Alton Brown’s The Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe is a bit more complicated than most, I found them worth the effort. To make the cookies chewier, Alton Brown uses melted butter, all bread flour, less egg white, and brown sugar. Let me tell you why they work.
1. Melted butter
The chocolate chip cookie recipe usually starts with creaming or melting the butter. Creaming the butter will lead to cookies with a higher, more cake-like texture while melting the butter will lead to chewier cookies. Why? During the process of creaming the butter, some air is incorporated and this air leavens the cookies as they bake, giving them some lift. That is why melted butter creates denser cookies which means more chewiness.
2. Bread flour
When I was trying to find the ultimate chocolate chip cookies, I found that different flour produces a different texture. I tried making the same recipe with cake flour, all-purpose flour, and bread flour to understand this science. Although the result was not that substantially different from each other, I found that cookies made with bread flour produced a chewier texture.
Alton Brown substituted regular all-purpose flour with bread flour which created cookies with extra chewiness. Bread flour has a higher protein content compared to all-purpose flour. It means bread flour enhances gluten elasticity, resulting in a chewier cookie.
3. Less egg white
Alton used one whole egg and one egg yolk in this recipe. Then, he replacing that one egg white with milk. Why does this work? Egg white is great at trapping air and the higher the proportion of egg white in cookies means the more they rise during baking. Replacing the water content of egg white with milk helps to get more gluten formation and thus creates denser cookies.
4. Brown sugar
As you can see, the sugar in these cookies is mostly brown sugar. Brown sugar somehow makes cookies moister and chewier than using white sugar. That is because it contains molasses which is capable of retaining extra moisture. I also love the taste of all brown sugar cookies because they taste richer with warm molasses flavor.
5. Chilling the cookie dough
Refrigerating the dough before baking will help inhibit spread because the butter is colder, and takes longer to melt. It also gives time for the liquid in the recipe to hydrate the flour.
No matter what type of cookies you love, they are always best paired with a glass of cold milk. Enjoy!
More Soft Cookies Recipes
While you are here, don’t forget to check out these soft cookies recipes!
- Oat Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
- Super Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Almond White Chocolate Matcha Cookies
- Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
- Biscoff Stuffed Cookie
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225 gr) unsalted butter
- 4 1/2 tbsp (57 gr) granulated sugar
- 1 1/8 cup (225 gr) light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tbsp whole milk
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups (370 gr) bread flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups (370 gr) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
- Pour the butter into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the sugars and beat with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 2 minutes.
- Meanwhile in a separate bowl, whisk together the whole egg, egg yolk, milk, and vanilla extract.
- Slow the mixer to “stir” and slowly work the egg mixture into the butter and sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds.
- Gradually integrate the dry ingredients, stopping a few times to scrape down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Once the flour is worked in, add the chocolate chips. Chill the dough for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 375F/190°C and place the racks in the top third and bottom third of the oven. Line 4 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and set aside.
- Scoop the dough into 1.5 ounce/43 gr portions and place on the half-sheet pans, 6 cookies per sheet.
- Bake two sheets at a time for 15 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking.
- Remove from the oven, slide the parchment with the cookies onto a cooling rack, and wait at least 5 minutes before devouring.
