The Best Chewy Cafe Style Cookies

[Solana Axton]

Afteryears of making them, I've very slightly tweaked the recipe (to be seriously perfect, because I'm obsessive), but the original recipe will be preserved in the notes section for all who prefer it. I've also taken new photos and included a how-to video, so if the page looks different to you, don't worry, you're still in the right place. And what a delicious place it is.

My mom has been making the same chocolate chip cookies for over 20 years. They're a hit around the holidays and they fly off the plate faster than anything else we put out for our Christmas spread. That's especially impressive if you know how enormous our Christmas spread typically is.

Everyone begs for the recipe (in between shoving them in their mouths, of course). I also gobble them down-- in fact, I probably gain 5 lbs every winter from those cookies alone. I can't stress it enough: I loooove those cookies.

These chocolate chip cookies made my mom decide that she will be abandoning her recipe that she's used for over 2 decades. These cookies are so good that I've dubbed them "The Best Chewy Caf-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies". These cookies are so soft and chewy that after sitting out on the counter uncovered overnight (woops) they were STILL SOFT AND DELICIOUS IN THE MORNING. In fact, I think they were even softer the second day!

A few years ago, when I first wrote this post, I spent an entire day trying to perfect my chocolate chip cookie recipe-- which resulted in a LOT of "close but not quite there" batches. After 11 hours of testing, I finally found it. I posted it here. Countless thousands of people tried it, and hundreds let me know that it was their favorite cookie recipe of all time.

Then I came back to it this year and decided to test it just a little more, to see if I really couldn't improve upon the already-great cookies at all. So I spent 6 days (YES, SIX) testing batch after batch, literally making myself sick from cookies, obsessing over every teensy tiny ingredient. And honestly, what I found is that my old recipe was almost flawless... but with just a couple of changes, it would truly earn the title of "The Best".

I call these cookies Caf-Style because they're giant, and they have that bumpy top that you always see on the mouth-watering cookies behind the caf counter. It's quite easy to create, actually-- all you have to do is roll your cookie dough into a ball, tear it in half, and smush the two halves together, torn-side up. Voila! Bumpy, lumpy, rustic-looking cookies.

The real magic here isn't in the bumpy tops, though. It's the softness and chewiness of the cookies. I found that the softest cookies are created when a) you use corn starch, b) you use melted butter, c) you chill your dough before baking, d) you take the cookies out of the oven early and let them cool on the baking sheet, and e) you adjust your cooking time based on your oven in your kitchen. Those are really the keys! Give it a try and see what a difference it makes.

Take my advice about the test batch of 1 or 2 cookies. You can have the greatest cookie recipe in the whole world, but the time will vary depending on your oven! The key to perfect cookies is knowing how to adjust for your kitchen, as I mentioned in the post.

* The original version of this recipe called for teaspoon of salt rather than 1 teaspoon, light brown sugar rather than dark, and baking at 325F rather than 350. I've found that the results are better and more reliable in the updated version, but feel free to use the old recipe if you prefer.

I've never left comments before for recipes but this chocolate chip recipe is so good, I just had to comment! I have been looking for the perfect chewy soft cookie recipe for years, through trial and (mostly) error, and for one reason or the other, the cookies often came out flat and got hard after coming out of the oven. This recipe worked perfectly, and (please forgive the hyperbole) I think you have reached a state of cookie nirvana. You are absolutely right about oven temps varying, my old, wonky oven took 17 minutes to get these right. Also, I live in Florida, so am at sea level altitude. As you say, the combination of cornstarch, melted, cooled butter and refrigeration of the dough really make the difference. I think, also, not overbeating the dough when combining the ingredients, and using parchment paper instead of greasing the cookie sheets, (a sin I've been guilty of in the past) also contribute to making these cookies come out so soft and chewy. I will be sharing this recipe with everyone I know. Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

Hey Morgan, I just wanna thank you for the best Chocolate Chip recipe ever! Ive done them 3 times now and they got better every time! Because I live in europe I had trouble with the measurements at first (cups,ounces) but then when I got a measuring cups with american units and it worked really well. Mine got really chocolaty because I used different chocolate chips that melted, but they were delicious! Thanks a lot!

Hey Morgan,

I made these cookies with your recipe and they're in the oven as I write this. I followed your recipe to a T! I had them chill in the fridge overnight because they were still too soft to handle after an hour. Even after chilling over night, I found the dough to still be very soft and not very easy to work with. They definitely don't look like the cookies in the picture, before going in the oven, and also while they're baking, they have all ran together and it looks like one BIG cookie.

If it was too soft to handle after an hour, the dry ingredients were likely accidentally under-measured or wet ingredients over-measured, or if you're in an especially humid place that could be the issue-- it's hard to say exactly what the problem was without having been there. Did you try baking 2 cookies to test, or did you bake them all at once? If you still have dough, you will want to incorporate just enough additional flour (it should only take a couple of tablespoons) until the dough can be worked with (but is still soft). Hope that helps, Cassidy!

When you say measure out 1/4 cup for each cookie, roll them and then split them and put them back together... is each cookie and entire 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) or are they split into halves (2 tablespoons each?)

Hey Morgan! Did you always have 1 full cup of brown sugar in the recipe or was it ever 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar? Also why change it at all?? They were positively the best cookies ever!

Hi Tegan! There's still a 1/2 cup of granulated sugar in there! (In addition to the cup of brown sugar.) I believe it's always been like that but I did make very minor adjustments a couple of years back so I could be forgetting something!

Hi. I made this recipe a few times and they turned great, but they were not very soft like the pics show, mine turned out kinda crunchy but the inside of the cookie was chewey. I don't know what I'm doing wrong... Do I need to add more butter?

They look amazing in the pics! Mine didn't exactly turn out like that. Please help!

Thanks:)

I put them in the middle of the oven. Next time I'll try using a little less flour because the dough was a little crumbly and maybe a tiny bit of milk to see if that will make a difference.

Thanks for your help

No I don't think I packed the four down I just scooped it and then scraped it off with the back of a butter knife. My dough was not sticky at all it was more on the dryer side then sticky.... I followed the recipe to a tee.

How do I make them more sticky? Im not sure what to do

thats what happened with mine! Poofy and not gooey like they should be. I read some other posts and I think maybe i over mixed the dry ingredients with the moist ingredients. So the dough had too much air? Maybe thats why they puffed? Help Morgan!!!

same here. i used baking powder instead of baking soda. I did mine on purpose just for experimentation sake. yep they were poofy alright. they turned out quite crunchy outside and soft inside. still yummy though. Tom, i will try again. ?

Why would you give the amounts of dry matter in a recipe by volume instead of weight, then note at the end that, because you've given the amounts by volume instead of weight, the recipe may come out wrong? I'm baffled.

Also, the recipe won't be bad if the weight of your flour is slightly different, but it may spread just a bit more. I'd rather put in the note for those who might be worried about it than not have the tip there. It should be absolutely fine though without weighing.

I actually appreciate that you gave the recipe the way you did. I don't use a scale with baking and hate it when the recipes are given that way. Oh and I made these last night and they were soooo good! I used Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet chips but next time I'm going to try milk chocolate since they're my fave! Thanks for the recipe!

@Morgan For a perfectionist, who spent lots of time, money, and effort developing this recipe, I'm surprised that you didn't give the flour's weight in grams in the recipe. It's been a couple years since this post, the recipe could've been updated with the helpful info by now. In the comments, there are many people who have issues getting similar looking cookies including myself. The cookies I baked are flatter. If you really wanted your readers to be able to replicate your recipe, you'd give the weights of the main ingredients also. I also love baking & I weigh everything in grams (when larger than a tablespoon) when I can. According to different bakers & flour manufacturers, a cup of AP flour can weigh 120-140+ grams - large room for error.

I attempted to make these super yummy looking cookies last night and they came out a bit fluffy. We added an additional 1/4 a cup of flour as the dough was very stick and we did test batches to try and determine the route of the problem but to no avail. We also live at 5300 ft so wondered if the altitude might be a factor. Any suggestions on how to make them less fluffy, more golden and the dough less sticky would be very helpful!

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