Our favourite chocolate chip cookies

For chewy cookie lovers only

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Now, onto cookies.

I will admit straight up, I actually don’t love cookies. I adore baking them, I adore coming up with cookie recipes, I love making cookie tins. But once I cook them, I mostly just love giving them away. I think cookies make the best edible gifts!

I think I will pretty much always choose cake, or toast, or something else over a cookie. But my daughter Mariù is a long time cookie fan and these are her favourite, which is saying something. She has a very particular palate. You could call her fussy. For years, especially when she was very little (she’s now 10), it was on the extreme side and she barely ate a handful of things. But cookies, along with plain pasta with just olive oil and Parmesan, and very crunchy apples were a real lifeline for us.

She would be obsessed for long periods at a time with a certain type of cookie. Other similar brands or homemade versions were cast aside immediately — she could tell. You could blindfold her and it wouldn’t matter, she could sense an imitation. Not just cookies but anything — even her preferred Parmesan or Asiago cheese, if you couldn’t find the usual brand, this preschooler was as harsh as any food critic (I suspect she might be a super taster where you literally have more taste buds on your tongue. I don’t think most people could tell the difference between two different brands of Asiago cheese, I certainly couldn’t).

It’s one of the reasons I think packaged foods have their place — aside from the convenience, that consistency in terms of flavour and texture are really key elements for sensitive eaters who rely on foods that they love and deem “safe” (feeding therapist Katja Rowell MD, aka “The feeding doctor” talks about this often). I was overjoyed when I found out that her favourite thin gingerbread cookies that she loved in Australia were very similar to the ones they sell at Ikea so that she could enjoy them in Italy too. I never thought I’d ever be writing these words, but here we are — those gingerbread thins are still her favourites.

As she has grown older, she has relaxed a lot more and eating is no longer a difficulty for her, though I think there is still a little bit of a sensory thing for her for certain foods. Cookies must be chewy. She will take those gingerbread thins, open the packet and leave the cookies out overnight so that they lose their crispness and the next day they are perfectly soft. So it was imperative with these chocolate chip cookies, which have become so loved, they are fought over till the very last one disappears: they have to be soft and chewy.

Over the years I’ve tried so many chocolate chip cookie recipe, trying to find the one that got the tick of approval. This is based on one from BBC food, though I have made some modifications, lately also reducing the chocolate chips as M’s kind of picky about those too — in fact I’ve come to realise that with these cookies, it’s more about the chew than the chocolate. Mostly, they go on the top because the perfectly chewy cookie dough shouldn’t be interrupted too much with chocolate. Once, we even made these chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips (what would they be called then? Chewy cookies? Whatever they are, they are good!).

There are two vital things I do to make sure of the perfect soft bite:

Brown sugar. I use all light brown sugar (muscovado) but on occasion I’ve mixed with some regular white sugar, such as when I haven’t had enough brown sugar lying around. The important thing is to use at least half brown sugar because this is the ingredient that helps make the cookies soft and super chewy.

Watch the timing in the oven. Soft and chewy cookies don’t need long in the oven, 7 minutes should do it. They look like they haven’t finished cooking, indeed the centres will be very soft so don’t even try touching them to see if they’re cooked. Just pull them out, let them cool and once perfectly cool they will harden on the outside a little more, but remain soft in the centre.

And that’s it, the only homemade cookies my sensitive eater will accept! We love this cookie recipe so much. They’ve gotten us through quarantine, wet and rainy winter days, 10 days at home with the flu days. They’re simple enough to make with the kids and easy/quick enough to whip up at any moment if there is a sudden need for a batch of cookies (doesn’t that happen to you too?).

Soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies

150 gr (3/4 cup) soft light brown sugar
150 gr (2/3 cup) soft butter (to soften quicker, dice chilled butter first)
1 egg
200 gr (about 1 3/4 cups) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 good pinch salt
100 gr (3.5 oz or generous 1/2 cup) chocolate chips

A couple of notes: You can mix white and brown sugars if that’s what you have or you want to have a play with the texture, they still come out quite chewy with half brown and half white sugar and hold their shape well. You can also reduce this to about 100 gr/1/2 cup if you like. The kids are adamant about using milk chocolate chips, personally I like dark chocolate from a bar, chopped into quite large chunks. You could, if you were so inclined, use even double this amount of chocolate. It’s been done before and they are wonderful but these days the kids ask for less chocolate (M even pulls the chips out!).

Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F.

Cream the sugars and butter with beaters until fluffy, then beat in the egg. Now fold through the flour, baking powder, salt and half of the chocolate chips, until just combined. Don’t overwork it if possible. Shape into balls with 2 tablespoons and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving about 5cm/2 inches between each cookie. They spread out a little. Place the rest of the chocolate chips on top (this is M’s touch — but you can also just mix them all through if you can’t be bothered).

Bake for 7 minutes — resist the temptation to cook for longer if you want these to be soft and chewy. They should be crisp around the edges but look still rather soft in the middle. They will harden slightly when cooled. If you like slightly crisper ones, leave them a little longer, like 10-12 minutes.

Cool completely (if you can) before eating/handling as they are quite soft while warm!