The Best Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is a repost of this 2014 recipe and while I’ve made many other chocolate chip cookies since then, these are some of my absolute favorites. These really are my new favorite chewy chocolate chip cookies. Now, that’s a big statement because I haven’t cheated on this recipe in two and a half years! I’ve used it for Twix Bar Cookies, Snickers Cookies, M&Ms Cookies, Smores Cookies, and many others when I want a hearty, but buttery dough base. Any cookie I’m going to stuff with add-ins or candy, that’s not a peanut butter cookie, I use that base.

But all good things eventually get knocked off their pedestal and something better, shinier, and newer comes along: enter cookies made with pudding mix.

The pudding cookie craze certainly isn’t new. I’ve used it in Soft M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies, Dark Chocolate Chunk and Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies, and Quadruple Chocolate Soft Fudgy Pudding Cookies and I wanted to create a classic soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe with it.

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is nearly a carbon copy of my old standby. The significant change is:

omitting 2 teaspoons of cornstarch and replacing with one packet instant vanilla pudding mix. (If you don’t like pudding mix or can’t find it in your area I recommend you use my old standby recipe because there’s really no substitutions here.)

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• one 3.5-ounce packet instant vanilla pudding mix (not sugar-free and not ‘cook & serve’)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt, optional and to taste
• one-12 ounce bag (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use Trader Joe’s)

DIRECTIONS:

1. To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large mixing bowl and electric mixer) combine the butter, sugars, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 4 minutes.
2. Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, pudding mix, baking soda, optional salt, and beat on low speed until just combined, about 1 minute.
3. .........................................

for full recipes please see : www.averiecooks.com