Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

Ingredients in Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

There are a few non-negotiable ingredients when making this recipe, but some swaps can be made without sacrificing the recipe’s results. Here’s what you need AND what you need to know:

• Softened Butter: Creaming butter and sugar incorporate air into the cookie mixture, making it light and fluffy. This helps baked goods rise and have a tender texture and contributes to crumb structure. This process requires room-temperature butter (that has NOT been melted)—no exceptions!
  • Cold butter doesn’t cream as well with sugar, so less air is incorporated, leading to a firmer dough. The cold butter also causes the dough to spread less while baking, resulting in thicker cookies. [NOTE: Attempting to cream cold or frozen butter can also damage your mixer.] Similarly, if it is too soft or melted, the butter won’t effectively trap air as the sugar is cut into it. When butter melts, it changes from a solid to a liquid, losing its ability to hold air and contribute to structure in baking. The fat separates from the water and milk solids, affecting texture and flavor in recipes by making them denser and more tender rather than light and fluffy. While you can use brown butter to make great cookies, I suggest following another recipe.
• Sugar: All classic chocolate chip cookie recipes typically contain both white and brown sugar. Why? Simply put, they perform different functions: white sugar for crisp edges and brown sugar for a chewy center. If your cookies spread too much while baking, it’s likely because the dough contains too much sugar (or wasn’t chilled long enough!)
• Eggs: Provide structure, moisture, tenderness, and flavor while helping with leavening and color.
• Vanilla Extract or Vanilla Paste: While vanilla doesn’t contribute to the texture or structure of the cookies, it plays a crucial role in elevating the overall flavor profile and making the cookies taste more delicious.
• Flour: While all-purpose (AP) flour is key to the success of this recipe, using a blend of AP Flour and whole wheat flour adds texture to the cookies and a subtle nutty flavor that helps make them irresistible. Once you’ve tried it this way, you’ll agree something is missing when you omit the wheat flour. However, it can be substituted with an equal amount of all-purpose flour. (For a single batch, you’ll need 2 1/4 cups of flour total.)
• Baking Soda: The leavening agent in the dough helps the cookies rise. It’s kind of the silent star of this recipe. Chocolate chip cookies typically use baking soda alone because it helps achieve the desired texture and spread, giving them distinctive crisp edges and slightly puffed centers. Baking soda reacts with the acidic ingredients in the dough (like brown sugar or chocolate), releasing carbon dioxide gas, which gives the cookies a chewy texture and helps them spread evenly during baking. If baking powder were used instead, the cookies might rise more and have a cakier texture, which is usually not the goal for chocolate chip cookies.
• Salt: Salt is the key ingredient that takes this recipe to the next level. Salt = flavor. Without enough salt, any dish—sweet or savory—will turn out flavorless and unsatisfying. A small amount of salt (usually a few teaspoons or less) is required in most baking recipes because it enhances the flavor of the other ingredients without tasting overtly “salty.” However, in this slightly savory cookie recipe, salt boosts the complex flavors of chocolate in the cookies and adds its own flavor and crunchy texture! To achieve balance, I added salt in two different ways:
  • Salted Butter: I used salted butter in this recipe, which, despite its name, contains an almost undetectable amount of salt (typically 1/4 teaspoon per stick). Since we are also adding flaky sea salt to the top of each cookie, using salted butter allows me to omit the additional salt typically found in chocolate chip cookie recipes. If you use unsalted butter instead, I would add 1/2 teaspoon of regular salt to the mixture with the vanilla.
  • Flaky Sea Salt: Another star of the dish! Flaky sea salt doesn’t fully melt in the oven. Instead, it tends to soften slightly and dissolve only a bit, leaving a crunchy, flavorful burst when sprinkling on cookies or other baked goods. Its delicate texture and larger crystals make it perfect for adding a finishing touch to baked items, giving them a pop of saltiness without entirely dissolving into the dough or batter. This is why it’s often added after baking or just before it goes into the oven, so you can still taste and feel the salt on the surface.
  • SUBSTITUTION NOTES:
    • The salted butter can be substituted with an equal amount of unsalted butter + 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
    • A 1/2 teaspoon of regular salt can be substituted for the flaky salt, but it should be added directly to the dough rather than sprinkled on top. Add any additional salt to the mixture along with the vanilla extract.
    • VERY IMPORTANT: If you substitute unsalted butter for table salt in this recipe, you will only need one teaspoon of salt in total. The recipe calls for significantly more flaky salt to account for
• High-Quality Baking Chocolate: This goes without saying, but your cookies will be better if you chop up some high-quality baking chocolate instead of reaching for chocolate chips.

How to Make the BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies of All Time

1. DO Soften Your Butter: If you take anything from this guide, please let it be this: You MUST soften your butter before proceeding with the rest of the recipe. For a full explanation, see the section above under “softened butter.”
2. DO Check The Salt: When substituting flaky sea salt for regular salt (such as table salt or kosher salt), you must adjust the quantity because flaky salt is less dense and has larger crystals, which take up more volume. Rather than add another type of salt and risk the recipe being too salty, I opted for salted butter, which typically only contains about 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick (which is not a lot!)
   • A general guideline: 1 teaspoon of flaky sea salt = ¾ teaspoon of regular salt.
3. DON’T use cheap quality chocolate chips in this recipe. If you need reasons, here are three:
   • Better Melt and Texture: Baking chocolate melts more evenly, creating a smoother, richer chocolate texture throughout the cookies. In contrast, chocolate chips are designed to hold their shape during baking, resulting in firmer chunks rather than fully melted pockets of chocolate.
   • Flavor: Chopped baking chocolate typically has a higher cocoa content and is less sweet than chocolate chips, allowing for a more intense, complex chocolate flavor in the cookies. Chocolate chips are often formulated with added stabilizers, which can affect the flavor.
   • Customization: When you chop your baking chocolate, you can control the size of the pieces—whether you want large chunks or finer bits—giving you more control over the texture and chocolate distribution in the cookies.
4. DO Chill the Dough Before Baking. Chilling cookie dough allows the flour time to hydrate properly and makes the butter solidify, which helps the cookies keep their shape and prevents them from spreading too much in the oven.
   • PLEASE NOTE: Even if you properly chill the dough, they will still run together if you put too many on the sheet tray, as I did.
5. DON’T Over-Bake the Cookies. There’s nothing worse than an overbaked cookie. Like brownies, cookies should be removed from the oven as soon as they are done baking and given plenty of time to cool and hold their shape. These cookies will be done when golden and crispy on the edges but still incredibly soft in the middle (but not wet or shiny). Since they do contain both whole wheat flour and dark brown sugar, they will be a few shades darker than your average cookie.