Good Crispy and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies for 1 in 20 Minutes

Whereas I really like making cookies for my family and friends, typically I simply need recent out of the oven, thick, gooey, heat chocolate chip cookies only for me and nobody else. However typically I don’t have the endurance or cause to whip up a whole batch of cookies. However two cookies? Two is ideal. Two cookies is usually all I would like and wish.

This recipe is for these “two cookie” moments in life. It produces two chewy, heat chocolate chip cookies that require no particular gear (simply a few mixing bowls), and it takes simply 20 minutes to make from begin to end. 

Whereas Critical Eats already has a number of wonderful full-batch recipes for chocolate chip cookies, drastically cutting down a cookie recipe typically requires head-scratching measurements like half an egg or wonky fractions that result in subpar outcomes. So right here I’ve executed the heavy lifting and all of the calculations and tinkering for you.

My recipe beneath is straightforward and simple with no surprising elements or laborious methods required. You merely whisk all of the dry elements and moist elements individually, stir collectively, add the chocolate chips, form, and bake in your oven, toaster oven, or air fryer—whichever is most handy for you. It may be the laziest cookie recipe on the market, however it produces extremely scrumptious chocolate chip cookies that you simply gained’t have to share with anybody. Learn on for a couple of primary ideas and to get the complete recipe.

Ideas for Making the Cookie Dough

Maintain the ingredient listing easy with only one sort of sugar. To assist streamline the baking course of, I attempted to maintain the ingredient listing so simple as doable when creating and testing this recipe. As an alternative of utilizing a mixture of each granulated and brown sugar within the dough (which is commonplace for a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes), these cookies rely solely on brown sugar for caramelized taste and chewy gentle texture. 

Skip the baking powder. As former Critical Eats culinary director Kenji factors out in his deep dive into chocolate chip cookies, baking powder typically produces cakier cookies that rise larger throughout baking, producing smoother, shinier tops, whereas utilizing baking soda quite than powder yields cookies which are craggier and denser in texture. Cakey cookies usually are not for me, so I reduce baking powder from the ingredient listing and relied on simply baking soda because the leavener in these cookies. Plus the brown sugar within the batter supplies loads of acid for the baking soda to react with, making certain the cookies have a dense chewy texture with golden crisp edges. A shorter ingredient listing and a cookie with a texture I desire—it is a win-win. 

Add an egg yolk. The trickiest ingredient to scale down for this small-batch recipe was the egg. Eggs have an effect on each form and texture in cookies. Yolks add richness with their fats and assist emulsify the dough, whereas the egg white provides moisture and proteins that elevate the dough and provides it construction. I discovered that including one complete egg to the small quantity of batter made the dough too moist and too difficult to form, and as soon as the cookies have been baked, they have been too fluffy and cake-like from the proteins within the egg white. The answer was to only use one egg yolk. With out the surplus moisture from the egg white, the dough has simply the fitting pliable texture and the cookies are completely chewy as soon as baked.

Whisk by hand. I knew I needed to keep away from getting out my stand mixer (and even handheld beaters) for this recipe, so I skipped the normal butter creaming step of most chocolate chip cookie recipes, and I used melted butter within the dough as an alternative. The melted butter is whisked with the sugar and egg yolk till the sugar is absolutely dissolved to make sure a easy texture. Whereas creaming butter and sugar traps air bubbles within the batter, which helps the batter rise into lighter, fluffier baked items, I really needed these cookies to have a chewier, fudgier texture. I didn’t miss the butter creaming step in any respect, and I discovered I used to be simply in a position to simply whisk the small batch of dough collectively by hand. Simply be sure the melted butter is cooled barely earlier than whisking within the egg yolk to make sure the egg doesn’t curdle. 

Let the dough sit within the fridge for a couple of minutes earlier than baking. In his cookie recipe, Kenji makes a very good argument for letting your chocolate chip cookie dough relaxation for an prolonged time (a couple of hours to a full day) to enhance the cookies’ taste. Throughout an prolonged relaxation the flour and starch proteins break down, which produces extra browning and taste growth throughout baking. If you’re making a full batch of cookies and you’ve got the time, it truly is value it to let your dough relaxation for this lengthy. However I needed my two cookies shortly, so I opted to skip this lengthy relaxation. I nonetheless embrace a quick 5 to 10 minute relaxation—whereas this is not sufficient time for the flavors to deepen, the quick relaxation offers the flour within the dough time to soak up moisture from the batter, which thickens the dough barely, making it simpler to portion and form. When the dough is first combined collectively, it has a looser, paste-like texture, however after only a few minutes of resting, it thickens right into a pliable cookie dough that’s simpler to easy into spherical balls. So don’t skip this transient relaxation.

3 Methods to Bake the Cookies

My favourite half about this recipe is that I don’t even have to activate my oven to bake the cookies. I’ve written the recipe to work within the toaster oven (my most popular software for small-batch baking) in addition to in a daily oven. The advantage of utilizing the toaster oven right here is apparent: It preheats a lot quicker than your commonplace oven, saving you time and chopping down on power use. The tactic and timing for the toaster oven and the common oven are comparable, so these directions are mixed within the recipe beneath.

I’ve additionally included instructions for baking the cookies within the air fryer. When you’re baking within the air fryer, it’s essential to chop parchment paper into a skinny strip and to put the cookies in direction of the outer fringe of the reduce parchment within the air fryer basket to stop the convection fan from inflicting the parchment to flap round. 

Whether or not you’re baking these cookies in a toaster oven, standard oven, or air fryer, be sure to allow them to cool briefly earlier than sinking your enamel into one. This ensures they gained’t disintegrate.

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