Cookie recipe: Sweetest Menu’s Jessica Holmes reveals how to make New York-style choc-chip cookies at home

Jessica Holmes — the self-taught baker behind hugely popular recipes website Sweetest Menu — shares her step-by-step guide to recreating classic choc-chip cookies at home.

New York-style chocolate chip cookies

One of the first places I ticked off my bucket list was New York. And while the memories of big pizza pies and creamy baked cheesecakes still linger, I’ve never craved an NYC cookie since I created this recipe.

Just like the ones I devoured in Central Park, these cookies are big, fat and buttery. The secret to making them so thick is using cold butter.

And lots of chunky mix-ins will also stop them spreading too much.

Makes 10 big cookies

115g (½ cup) unsalted butter, cold, roughly chopped

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, cold

1¾ cups plain flour or all-purpose flour

1 tbsp cornflour or cornstarch

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp salt

150g dark chocolate (50-70 per cent cocoa), roughly chopped

75g milk chocolate, roughly chopped

½ cup walnuts, roughly chopped

sea salt flakes, to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced. Line two large baking trays or cookie sheets with baking paper or parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter and brown sugar.

3. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the butter starts to soften. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the butter and sugar are combined and smooth.

4. Add the vanilla and egg. Beat briefly on medium speed until combined — but try not to over-mix. Scrape down the side of the bowl.

5. Add the flour, cornflour, bicarbonate of soda and salt, and beat on low speed until a soft cookie dough forms.

6. Add the dark chocolate, milk chocolate and walnuts and beat briefly on low speed for 30 seconds.

7. Scoop out roughly 80g (¼ cup) of cookie dough and gently pinch and squeeze to form a ball (but try not to roll it completely smooth). Place the cookie balls on the prepared trays, leaving room for them to spread.

8. Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. Leave the cookies on the tray to cool for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

9. Sprinkle sea salt flakes on top of the cookies.

NOTES

• The trick to getting a thick cookie without spending time chilling the dough is to use cold butter — straight from the fridge. If you don’t have a stand mixer and you are finding the cold butter hard to work with, you can use softened butter — but not melted butter. However, you will need to chill the dough for at least 30 minutes in order to achieve that impressive height.

• My cookies feature two types of chocolate and crunchy walnuts, but you can adapt the mix-ins to your liking. Just keep the volume the same — aim for two cups of chunky mix-ins.

• Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

This is an edited extract from Something Sweet by Jessica Holmes, $19.99, published by Pan Macmillan.