Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies 2.0

*The flattening with a spatula is inspired by both the Mokonuts’ Rye-Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies by Dorie Greenspan and the Perfectly Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies by Jessie Sheenan; both these recipes require the cookies to be baked in balls and then flattened slightly to give them a gooey center and a crackly top.

*I prefer to sprinkle the flaky salt on the tops of the cookies before baking vs after – I think that it helps bring out more flavor without tasting overwhelmingly salty.

using an oven thermometer to check the temperature of your oven can be helpful; many ovens are off by up to 25 degrees (mine included). If your oven runs hot, you can bake a single cookie first to see how it turns out. If the bottom is too dark for your liking, you can stack two sheet pans on top of each other and bake the cookies on them to slow down browning.

*Throughout my recipes posted on this website, 1 cup of flour equals 142g. Please note that 1 cup of flour can range anywhere from 120g to 142g, depending on the baker or website. I found that after weighting many cups of flour and averaging the total, mine always ended up around this number. If I am posting a recipe from another cookbook, I will use whatever gram measure of flour used in that book, which is why you may see a few posts with a different cup measurement.

Different brands of flour have varying levels of protein, ranging from low to high, which can result in very different outcomes when baking. I’ve found Gold Medal all-purpose unbleached flour to be the best option for many of my recipes; I use it in all the baked goods that don’t use yeast. For yeasted doughs that call for all-purpose flour, I like to use King Arthur Brand. If you are using White Lily flour, please note that it is a low protein flour and doesn’t absorb liquid the same as regular all-purpose flours. Check the back of the flour bag for instructions on substituting it for regular all-purpose flours.