Desserts · Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies

Name: Chocolate chip cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 32 min
Yield: 24 servings
Ingredients: 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour; 12 tbsp butter, softened; 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed; 1/2 cup granulated sugar; 2 eggs egg; 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract; 1 tsp baking soda; 3/4 tsp salt; 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

The fifth most-searched recipe in America and the single most-liked food in the country. This is the real one — butter, two sugars, chips. It scores where a cookie scores, and no amount of reformulating would make it the thing people are searching for.

Time: 32 min (20 prep + 12 cook)
Servings: 24
Per serving: 179 kcal
Protein: 2 g

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour280 g
12 tbsp butter, softened170 g
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed150 g
1/2 cup granulated sugar100 g
2 eggs egg100 g
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract8 g
1 tsp baking soda5 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips200 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Beat the softened butter with both sugars for a full 3 minutes until pale and fluffy. This is the step that decides the texture — under-creamed butter gives flat, greasy cookies.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.
Fold in the flour, baking soda and salt until just combined, then the chocolate chips.
Chill the dough at least an hour — overnight is better. Then bake at 180°C (350°F) for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set and the middles still look underdone. They finish on the tray.

Why chill the dough?

It lets the flour hydrate and the butter firm up, so the cookies spread less and taste more caramelised. An hour is the minimum that makes a visible difference; overnight is noticeably better.

Alternatives

Why this score

engineered against fullness

Concentrated sugar, with little protein or fiber to slow it down; dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

5% of kcal

4% water

4 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

50%

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 4307 kcal goes into the pot, 1017 g of ingredients comes out as ~900 g of food → 479 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 479
Protein: (5%); 7 g
Fat: (43%); 24 g
Carbohydrates: (52%); 65 g
of which sugar: 40 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 469 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More desserts

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.