Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Vanilla Bean Baking Book
These cookies were just featured in the New York Times! We’re so thrilled for Sarah and it just confirms what we already know about them, they are AWESOME!
You are on the right site, we are just taking a short break from baking bread to bring you one of our absolute favorite recipes from Sarah’s new book, The Vanilla Bean Baking Book. You all know Sarah’s gorgeous work here on Breadin5, but you may not be as familiar with her baking website. Sarah has been working with us on the Breadin5 website and has been instrumental in our cookbook photoshoots as a food stylist. During our last marathon photo session she brought us cakes, cookies, scones and even pie she was testing for her own cookbook. When she brought in these chocolate chip cookies we took a moment out of the shoot to declare them the best cookies any of us had ever had. I do not say that lightly, considering I had a cookie company in college, have baked no fewer than 500 chocolate chip cookie recipes and have consumed even more. These are the best and now you have the recipe.
We are thrilled for Sarah and are so proud of her and this brilliant book! She and her publisher have graciously offered a copy of her book to a lucky winner of our GIVEAWAY. Just leave a note in our comments and we will select someone at random. It will make a great addition to your cookbooks or a lovely gift for someone on your list. All our normal contest rules apply. This contest is over.
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES from The Vanilla Bean Baking Book
makes 10 cookies
2 cups (284 g) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ pound (2 sticks; 227 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1½ cups (297 g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (50 g) packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons water
6 ounces (170 g) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into bite-size pieces averaging ½ inch with some smaller and some larger
To bake the cookies:
Adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 3 Baking Sheets with aluminum foil, dull side up. (I used parchment paper, because I was desperate to make these and was out of foil. I found the results were excellent, but I would suggest doing it on foil, as Sarah suggests.) This helps create the crinkles in the cookies.
In a small bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a Beater Blade, beat the butter on medium until creamy. Add the granulated and brown sugars and beat on medium until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, and water and mix on low to combine. Add the flour mixture and mix on low until combined. Add the chocolate and mix on low into the batter.
Scoop the dough into 3½-ounce (100g) balls (a heaping ⅓ cup each). Place 4 balls an equal distance apart on a prepared pan and transfer to the freezer for 15 minutes before baking. After you put the first baking sheet in the oven, put the second one in the freezer.
This step is essential for getting the crinkles on the edge.
Place the chilled baking sheet in the oven and bake 10 minutes, until the cookies are puffed slightly in the center. Lift the side of the baking sheet up about 4 inches and gently let it drop down against the oven rack, so the edges of the cookies set and the inside falls back down (this will feel wrong, but trust me). After the cookies puff up again in 2 minutes, repeat lifting and dropping the pan. Repeat a few more times to create ridges around the edge of the cookie. Bake 16 to 18 minutes total, until the cookies have spread out and the edges are golden brown but the centers are much lighter and not fully cooked.
Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack; let cool completely before removing the cookies from the pan.
NOTES: These cookies are rather large, but to get the edges to spread out and crinkle, they need to be on the big side. If you want to make the cookies smaller, you won’t get as many ridges on the outer layer, and your center won’t be quite as gooey. They will still be delicious, but not quite what I intended for you.
If you skip freezing the cookies, they will spread too much on the pan and will not form the crinkly outer layer.
I’ve made several recipes from Sarah’s book and they are now staples in my kitchen. It is a great book for both beginners and more advanced bakers. You’ll want to start with these cookies, but then quickly make her chocolate cake. I am known for my chocolate cake and I now use Sarah’s.
I always like trying new cookbooks 🙂
Can’t wait to try this recipe! Sarah’s cookbook looks gorgeous!!
These look amazing! Cant wait to try them and ofcourse the chocolate cake! Thank you for sharing! Would love to see the whole cookbook at my house!
Yum and thanks!
Those cookies look amazing! I love baking with ground vanilla powder. It can be bought as a supplement for a fraction of the price of vanilla beans and has more flavor than extract.
Where do you find the Ground Vanilla Powder?
Thanks!
Better send you to Sarah’s website for that: https://thevanillabeanblog.com/
Wow, those cookies look wonderful! Thanks for the recipe.
Baking is my happy place!!! Would love to check this book out!!
I plan to make these cookies as a holiday gift for the neighbors. If I am fortunate enough to win a copy of Sarah’s book the first thing I want to tackle is the Ginger Cake with Pumpkin Mousseline. I try 2-3 new recipes a week and love each new adventure…granted some do end up in the trash. Thank you.
Yum, they look delish!
What a wonderful Christmas gift this would be! FOR ME…please? Until then, I will begin with these cookies…
I’m lazy, but this recipe is so intriguing that I may just have to try it!
Looks like a beautiful cookbook!
I will check out her blog. These cookies are on my list to make this month! Thanks.
I was just telling my son that I need to find a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. This looks like the one!
These look DIVINE! I can’t wait to make them! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I haven’t bought a loaf of bread in almost 3 years, since discovering the bread books, so, I’d be very interested in trying the recipes from this cook book too!
Yum!
We are still looking for the best chocolate chip cookie. It looks like these are in the running!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe with us! Can’t wait to try it, promise not to skip the freezing step!
Those cookies and the cookbook both look lovely. Thanks!
Oh my… I love the swirled out crinkly look to these. I’m so looking forward to trying these.
I love chocolate cookies and these look deliciously different. I would get a lot of use from the book.
Hmmmmmmm cookies. Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom!!
When my daughter comes home from grad school for the holidays, we bake. It’s one of our favorite things to do together! And because my husband and I are trying (really, we are!) to cut down on sweets, when K and I hit the kitchen, we pretend all that butter and sugar has no calories, just for a little while. I’d love a copy of this book! Thanks for the opportunity, and happy holidays!
Thanks for the cookie recipe If all the recipes in the book are this yummy I’ll have to have one
Sounds like a terrific book! Can’t wait to try the recipe!
Trying this recipe ASAP!
Those cookies look awesome! (And I’m intrigued by the lovely cake in the front of the book too!) 🙂
They look amazing!
I love the look of these cookies – thin. And the book’s cover is so pretty.
I have a soft spot for cookbooks – and chocolate chip cookie recipes…it’s impossible to collect too many! Thank you for the giveaway opportunity; looks like a beautiful book.
I make a similar cookie, without the crinkled edges, but flat chewy gooey, a half pound of chocolate in one batch. I call it the shaved chocolate cookie. It is super popular!
chocolate chip cookies are our family’s favorite. Looking forward to checking out the book.
Just lovely! So excited for Sarah!
I love to bake!
Looks good but I don’t quite understand why the crinkles make the cookies better. Is it a texture thing? I wonder how these will compare to the Cooks Illustrated perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe that uses browned butter. I do not own a stand mixer and I liked their methos because it’s easier with a hand mixer.
Me neither! Can’t figure that one out…
I can’t wait to try these!
Would love to win a copy of this book.
Thank you!
Thanks for the cookie recipe and tutorial. We are certainly going to give it a try!!! I have wonderful memories of baking cookies with my Grandmother over the holidays, and I would like to keep up the tradition!
Would love to receive this cookbook…those cookies look amazing
This book is gorgeous – I’d love to bake some of those recipes.
Wow, those look so delicious. I will definitely try them soon.
Looking forward to trying the recipe.
Been looking forward to getting this book!
Gorgeous cookies! Sounds like a great book!
I’m so excited to make these!
These cookies look intriguing!
Sounds yummy. I can’t wait to try these recipes.
Yummy! Like the challenge of the crinkles. Most certainly going to give these a try.
That cookbook looks amazing!
Sarah’s photos are fabulous – if her baking & recipes are even close, that book will be treasured for generations!