The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies ~ everybody and their grandmother thinks they make the best chocolate chip cookies ~ and it gets a little old after a while.  With nuts, without nuts, thick, thin, chewy, crispy, blah blah blah…  but this buttery shortbread based chocolate chip cookie recipe is truly the best ~ try it and see!

Shortbread is probably the ORIGINAL cookie, it goes way back, and the formula is a deliciously primitive combination of butter, sugar, and flour.  Between SHORTBREAD and my FLOURLESS COOKIES,  I hardly ever make cookies with eggs anymore.  I prefer the texture without, and as an added bonus you can eat the dough, hooray!

The buttery dough is dreamy to work with, it rolls out easily and reforms over and over again so you can use every last bit.  I like to roll it out to about 1/3 to 1/2 inch and cut chunky 3 inch rounds.  That way you end up with a serious cookie.  Cut them smaller if you like, but the heft of these cookies is part of their appeal.  One of these bad boys is plenty.

There is something festive about these cookies in spite of their rustic appearance, maybe it’s because of their Old World roots.  They are simple, yes, but decadently rich and buttery.  During the holiday season we have an endless assembly line of these cookies going in the kitchen at all times.  They’re sturdy enough for gift giving, and both the dough and the baked cookies freeze well.

Reader Rave ~

“I have a batch of these in the oven now!! Since finding your recipe a couple months back, I’ve made these 4 times. My husband claims to dislike shortbread but this is the recipe he always requests now :) Thank you for sharing it!!”  ~  Limeriot

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3.6 from 10 votes

Milk Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies

These are simply the best chocolate chip cookies ~ it's an easy chocolate chip cookie recipe with the melt in your mouth texture of shortbread!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 sticks 1 cup, unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips

Instructions

• set oven to 350F
• Cream the butter and the sugar together. Beat in the vanilla extract.
• Add the flour, a little at a time, until the dough comes together. Fold in the chips just before it all comes into one mass.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured board and bring it all together with your hands. Form it into a plump disk and then roll it out, flouring your rolling pin as necessary, to about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut cookies with a 3" cookie cutter, pressing down firmly to cut through the chocolate chips. Reform the dough as needed to use it all up.
• Arrange the cookies on a cookie sheet and then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the whole tray for at least an hour.
• Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes, give or take, depending on their size. You want them to be every so slightly golden just around the edges, and be slightly firm to the touch. They are forgiving...if you bake them more they will b more crunchy, if you bake them for less time they will be soft and buttery.
• Let them cool for a few minutes on the tray and then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.

Make these chocolate chip cookies your own ~

• Try half whole wheat flour for a nutty flavor and nutrition boost.
• Replace the chocolate chips with chopped walnuts or pecans.

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