big fat chewy chocolate chip cookies

The addition of the brown sugar actually helps the cookies become thicker when combined with the white sugar. Also the addition of the baking powder along with the baking soda also helps in this process so they rise taller.

When using a ¼ cup measuring cup to measure out the size out of the cookies, they will make 14 cookies. You can absolutely double this recipe to make more to keep them on hand or to serve more people or give away to friends and family.

Chilling the dough helps solidify the fats in the recipe which them makes them melt slower when baking (reducing the spread) which then keeps them nice and thick.

These can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature where they will last for 3-4 days. They can also be frozen. PWlace your cooled cookies in a freezer container or bag and they should last in the freezer for up to 3 months. Let defrost on the countertop before eating.

HOW TO PROPERLY MEASURE FLOUR?

In order to properly measure flour, fluff the flour so it’s not packed down and spoon the flour into the measuring cup. Level off the flour with a knife. If you scoop the flour with the measuring cup it packs down the flour and causes you to add too much to the dough.

HOW DO I MAKE COOKIES THICK?

You want to roll the balls of dough taller rather than wide. That makes for one thick cookie! Look how tall those balls of cookie dough are above.

HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING

There is a great resource for high altitude baking here. There are various things you can do like increasing oven temperature, decreasing sugar, and increasing liquid.

For this recipe, I tried some of the variations. This recipe dough is fairly liquid already so I didn’t want to increase that and they aren’t incredibly sweet so I didn’t decrease the sugar. I tried baking at 25 degrees higher but liked my control group at 325 degrees better. The one change I did find helpful was to increase the flour. King Arthur Flour says this: “At 3,500 feet, add 1 more tablespoon per recipe. For each additional 1,500 feet, add one more tablespoon.” Since I’m at 5,000 ft I added 2 tablespoons of flour.

Recipe Testing: What Works & What Doesn’t

1. The weight of peanut butter. This cookie dough is adapted from my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The addition of peanut butter here, however, can weigh down the dough. To counter this, I add baking powder for lift.
2. A spreading solution. When testing the recipe, I found the cookies weren’t spreading enough. I decided to swap the quantities of granulated sugar and brown sugar. Granulated sugar – dry and thin – helps increase cookie spread. Brown sugar–moist and thick–keeps cookies compact. Increasing the granulated sugar makes all the difference in this dough for the perfect spread. You won’t even miss that extra brown sugar flavor because the peanut butter is our front-runner.
3. Fewer oats + more chocolate. When testing, I originally had a higher quantity of oats in the cookies. I decided to reduce that amount to make room for more chocolate chips.