Chocolate Chip Cookies

Crunchy, buttery cookies that are probably the best you'll ever eat.

Cookies for breakfast—who’s with me!

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is so good that you’ll want to make it over and over again. It makes a crunchy, buttery cookie that any cookie lover—whether gluten free or not—will love.

When baking, you’ll often get the best results by measuring ingredients by weight rather than volume (cups, teaspoons, etc.), and that’s how I like to do this recipe. So if you have a kitchen scale that measure in grams, please use it for this. If you don’t, I’ve done my best to translate from weight to U.S. volume measurements and included that as well.

This recipe also includes nuts, which you can leave out if you prefer, and I used all dark chocolate chips (72% cacao), but you can use milk chocolate or a mix of dark and milk chocolate. In addition to a kitchen scale or measuring utensils, you’ll need a mixing bowl and a cookie sheet for the oven.

Be sure to scroll down for a great photo of Seraphina!

You’ll need butter, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, GF flour, baking powder, an egg, chopped nuts, and chocolate chips.

Ingredients (in grams, followed by approximate U.S. volume measures):

1. 110 g butter (1/2 cup, or 1 stick)—let it sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes so it’s soft enough to mix with other ingredients

2. 150 g brown sugar (1 ¼ packed cups)

3. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if you don’t have it, you can leave it out)

4. A big pinch, or 1/8 teaspoon sea salt (see note 1)

5. 180 g gluten-free flour blend (1 ½ cups) (see note 2)

6. 7 g baking powder (1 ½ teaspoons)

7. 1 egg at room temperature

8. 50 g chopped pecans or other nuts (1/2 cup)

9. 100 g dark or milk chocolate chips (1/2 cup)

The dough with the chocolate chips and nuts about to be mixed in by hand.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F convection (325 F if not using convection)

2. In the mixing bowl and using a fork, mash the soft butter together with the brown sugar and vanilla until fully blended

3. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and egg and use a spatula to start mixing

4. Once the egg and flour are mixed in a bit, set the spatula aside and continue mixing with your bare hands until thoroughly blended (see note 3)

5. Add the chocolate chips and nuts and continue blending by hand until they are evenly distributed in the dough

6. Roll out 50 g balls of cookie dough (about 2 tablespoons, see note 4), flatten them into a cookie shape, and place them on a buttered cookie sheet (see note 5)

7. Put the cookie sheet in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes (see note 4)

The raw cookies ready to go into the oven for about 30 minutes.

Notes:

1. Whenever I see “a pinch of salt” in a recipe, I add 1/8 teaspoon. If you literally do a “pinch”, you’ll only get a few grains in the dish, which will make no difference to your seasoning—you’ll end up wanting to add more.

2. King Arthur brand Gluten Free Measure For Measure Flour, shown in the photo, is what I used for this recipe and is what I use for most baking. If you use a different blend, make sure it contains xanthan gum as King Arthur does.

3. I’m not sure how well mixing this with an electric mixer would work—I haven’t tried it. Sometimes, mixing with your hands is the most effective method, and it works very well here. Just be sure to wash your hands before you stick them in the dough! You can try using latex gloves if you want to keep the sticky dough off your fingers.

4. You should end up with 13 cookies—If you come up with more, bigger cookies or fewer, smaller cookies, you’ll need to adjust the baking time up or down.

5. I always rub a layer of soft butter on the cookie sheet, even if it is supposed to be nonstick. I also tried this recipe by laying the cookies on just a layer of parchment paper placed directly on the oven rack, which increased the amount of time needed in the oven.

6. I tried this recipe at different temperatures, and 300 F convection at 35 minutes worked best for me. I’d suggest going for 30 minutes and eating one of the cookies at that point (careful, it will be hot). I originally baked mine for 30 minutes and found that the cookie I ate had a bit of uncooked dough at the center, so I put them back in for another 5 minutes, which finished the job. If you made fewer than 13 cookies from the batch, you’ll probably need to bake longer. If you made more than 13 cookies, 30 minutes should be enough.

Seraphina is now 12 years old, and she seems to have mellowed with age, as she now is less shy around unfamiliar people.

Cat update:

I’ve been told by friends who look in on Seraphina while I’m away that she has become less shy of people. During my most recent out-of-town jaunts, she was very happy to see her caretakers. A gesture Seraphina makes to show she’s happy to see someone is to puff up her raised tail and vibrate it rapidly—her caretakers have tried to capture the move in photos, but the photos never do it justice.