Ultimate soft and chewy cookie recipe

(Image courtesy of Evie Goodwin)

The perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe is an elusive thing. Too much egg and you’ll end up with an unpleasantly solid texture. Too much butter makes for thin, brittle cookies, whereas too little will leave them dry. If you’ve tried and failed to achieve that perfect, chewy cookie, densely packed with chocolate chunks, have no fear; I’ve done all the experimenting for you!

This Millie’s-Cookies-style recipe takes just half an hour to complete, leaving you with soft, sweet cookies to share with flatmates or sneak to your room. Under-baking is the key to a soft and gooey texture, so let your cookies bake for no longer than 7-8 minutes and remove them while the middle still looks slightly raw; don’t panic, they’ll firm up as they cool (if you can wait that long).

This recipe can be kept as it is for traditional chocolate chip cookies or pimped-up to your taste by adding your own favourite chocolate. My personal favourite additions are Mini Reese’s Cups, Kinder bars or simply chopped white chocolate. For an even moister cookie, replace caster sugar with more light brown sugar, and for a chewier texture, use slightly melted butter.

Ingredients:

120g Butter or Margarine (softened)

130g Light Brown Sugar

90g Caster Sugar

1 Egg

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

220g Self Raising Flour

200g Chocolate Chips (or chopped into chunks)

Instructions:

1. Start by pre-heating your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2. Line a couple of baking trays with greaseproof paper; you can just grease your trays with butter, but for less chance of your cookies sticking (and no washing up), grease proof paper is the better option.

3. In a large bowl, mix together your butter or margarine and sugar with a wooden spoon. When they’re combined and no big lumps of sugar remain, mix in your egg and vanilla extract. Beat everything together until you have a smooth batter.

4. Now, stir in your chocolate chunks. I like to add these before the flour as it’s easier to combine everything before a proper dough has formed. Gently pour in your self raising flour and fold everything together; you should be left with a soft dough.

5. Use a tablespoon to drop rough balls of dough on to your baking trays, leaving around 2 inches of space between them to allow for spreading. Be warned that the bigger your lumps of dough, the more your cookies will spread. For larger cookies, put more space between them and add another minute on to your baking time.

6. Bake for 7-8 minutes. They will look underbaked at first but will continue baking on the tray.

7. Try to leave them to cool for 10 minutes before trying your creations; after this the edges will have crisped up while the middle stays warm and melted, giving you the perfect straight-from-the-oven cookie texture!

And that’s all there is to it! This would a great time filler if you're feeling bored in lockdown too. If you try our cookie recipe, be sure to let us know via our Instagram page @inquirekent.