Giant Flat Chocolate Chunk Cookies

The recipe, step by step

These giant flat chocolate chunk cookies are what dreams are made of. A crisp vanilla cookie on the outside with a chewy centre, full of chocolate inside. Warm, gooey, and oh-so-satisfying, there’s nothing quite like a freshly-baked cookie.

These large cookies measure around 12cm (4.5″) once baked, so don’t overcrowd the baking tray. I prefer to place 3 cookies on a tray so they can spread out nicely without touching.

In this post, I’m excited to share not just one, but two recipes for giant flat chocolate cookies. You can enjoy classic vanilla dough cookies filled with chocolate, and you can also make chocolate dough cookies. These cookies can be filled with various additions like chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, or your favourite candies such as M&Ms or Maltesers. Check out my variations section for ideas.

If you love these, then you’ll absolutely adore my egg-free Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

INGREDIENTS

For this recipe, all you need are these ingredients:

• Butter – adds structure and flavour. I use salted butter for most of my baking as it intensifies the flavours, but feel free to use unsalted if you prefer. Make sure it’s at room temperature before using.

• Caster sugar – adds structure, sweetness and creates the chewy centre.

• Soft brown sugar – creates that extra crispiness in the cookies.

• Egg – helps to bind the ingredients together and add flavour.

• Vanilla – I use Taylor & Colledge vanilla products, they add a delicious taste to your recipes and enhance the other ingredient flavours: pure vanilla extract, vanilla paste or vanilla pods.

• Baking powder – is a chemical leavening which increases the volume of the ingredients, creating a nice light texture.

• Plain (all-purpose) flour – builds structure.

• Dark chocolate chips or chunks – the more the merrier.

Chocolate recommendations: bars – Lindt Excellence dark 70% bar 100g, Montezuma’s darkside 51% bar 90g, Menier dark cooking chocolate 100g, Green and Black’s Organic dark Chocolate 100g, 1kg bags – Callebaut dark chocolate, Callebaut milk chocolate, Callebaut white chocolate.

• Salt – I highly recommend adding a good pinch of fine sea salt to your biscuit dough. It may seem unusual in a sweet recipe, but salt helps balance the sweetness, soften any bitterness and bring out the flavour of ingredients such as chocolate, vanilla, citrus and spices. It should not make the biscuits taste salty; it simply makes every flavour brighter and more rounded.
  I like to use Maldon Sea Salt flakes or Cornish Sea Salt, crushed finely before adding, but any good-quality fine sea salt will work well. Do not be tempted to leave it out—it is often the small ingredient that makes the biggest difference.

WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?

This is where the fun begins, these cookies are great for adding flavour additions.

• Chocolates: Try swapping dark chocolate for milk or white chocolate and you can use chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate. Adding your favourite sweets such as M&Ms, Maltesers or pieces of a Chrunchie bar are also great options.

• Nuts: Replace the chocolate or add 100g coarsely chopped pecans, pistachios, almonds, walnuts or even hazelnuts.

• Fruits: If you like dried fruits, try adding 50g raisins, apricots or cranberries to the recipe. Pretty much any dried fruit works well.

NUTRITION

STORAGE AND FREEZING

Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container for 5-7 days at room temperature.

Freezing the cookie dough – freeze the scoped dough on the baking tray or a plate that fits in your freezer (lined with baking paper). Once they have frozen solid, approx. 30 minutes, transfer them to a freezer-safe, airtight container. They will last up to 3 months in the freezer. Bake from frozen, adding an additional 1-2 minutes to the instructions above.

Freezing the baked cookies – cool the biscuits completely after baking and place them in a freezer bag or airtight container. They will last up to 1 month. When you are ready to serve, allow the cookies to reach room temperature.

TOOLS YOU’LL NEED

Here is some kitchen equipment that I use and recommend for this recipe.

• Silicone Baking Mat, Standard, 2 Count, 42 x 29.5 cm

I love using these baking mats. They stop everything from sticking to the baking tray and are really easy to clean.

• Ice Cream Scoops with Easy Trigger Set of 3, large (3 Tbsp/45ml/6cm/1.5 oz), medium (2 Tbsp/30ml/5cm/1 oz), small (1 Tbsp/15ml/4cm/0.5 oz)

These three different sized scoops are perfect for ice cream, melons and cookies.

RECIPE TIPS

Use room temperature butter – cold butter will not cream together properly with the sugars.

The dough should be a little sticky – don’t try to add more flour to eliminate the stickiness.

Resting and chilling the cookie dough – this is completely optional for these cookies. Resting the dough does give slightly better results as it allows the dry ingredients to absorb the moisture from the wet ingredients. This creates more flavour in the dough and because the fats are also chilled it prevents the cookies from spreading out too quickly during baking. This means the edges wont be ultra thin but more rounded after baking.

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