White Chocolate Chip Cookies
These white chocolate chip cookies are made with softened butter, brown sugar, and an extra egg yolk for an ultra rich and chewy cookie. There’s also a secret ingredient that keeps these cookies incredibly soft, even after several days!
I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate. But after getting a few requests for these cookies, I knew I needed to create a recipe that could convert anyone (myself included!) to loving white chocolate.
I originally started with my classic chocolate chip cookies and swapped out the regular chocolate chips for white chocolate. While the cookies were good, I felt like they needed something else. After several rounds of recipe testing I finally settled on the best recipe!
The secret? Scaling down my chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding a few extra ingredients to make them richer and softer, and using A LOT of white chocolate. I guarantee you won’t be able to stop at just one of these cookies.
Watch The Recipe Video
Don’t Skip These Key Ingredients
White Chocolate
I prefer to use white chocolate chips because they contain stabilizers that help them hold their shape in the oven. You can chop up 12 ounces of white chocolate and use that instead though. It will seem like a lot for the amount of cookie dough, but trust me. I found that the cookies not only tasted better with more white chocolate (surprise!), but they also turned out even thicker.
Cornstarch
This is the secret ingredient for making these cookies incredibly soft. For those outside of the US, this is usually labeled as corn flour. You can technically leave it out of the recipe, but I highly recommend using it if you have some on hand.
Egg Yolk
In my recipe testing, I found that an extra egg yolk adds more moisture and richness to the cookie dough. Don’t toss out the extra egg white either! You can save it and use it for breakfast the next morning or make some candied pecans.
Make Sure To Measure And Mix Everything Correctly
- Use room temperature ingredients. This will ensure that the butter mixes easily with the sugar and the eggs mix together thoroughly with the wet ingredients. You also want your butter to be at a cool room temperature. In other words, it’s cool to the touch but your finger should leave an indent if you press into it. If you need to speed up the process, just slice your butter into tablespoon-sized pieces and place your eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Mix the butter and sugar together for one to two minutes. You want to make sure your butter and sugar are thoroughly mixed together, like the picture above on the left. Make sure not to mix them too long though or your butter will start to get warm and you can end up with greasy cookies.
- Make sure to measure your flour correctly. Don’t scoop your flour from the container! It’s extremely important to spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level it off with the back of a knife. Too much flour can lead to thick, dry, cakey cookies. If you’re new to baking, I have a post on how to measure flour.
- Don’t over mix the dough. This can lead to tough, flat cookies. You only need to mix in the dry ingredients and white chocolate chips until just combined.
Do I Have To Chill The Cookie Dough?
The short answer, yes.
This will give the butter time to firm back up, so your cookies don’t spread too much in the oven. It also allows the flour time to hydrate and makes the flavor even better.
If you want to make it ahead of time, you can chill the cookie dough for up to 3 days. If you’re short on time, scoop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet, chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes, then bake as directed.
How To Customize Your Cookies
This recipe is perfect as written (if I do say so myself!). However, you can make a few adjustments to customize these cookies.
- Make larger cookies: I used a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop for this recipe, but you could easily make them larger. Just be sure to increase the baking time accordingly.
- Add nuts, dried fruit, or use a different kind of baking chip: You can replace some of the white chocolate chips with chopped nuts, dried cranberries or pineapple, or another kind of chocolate chip.
- Add some sprinkles: Feel free to add a few tablespoons of sprinkles to suit the occasion! You could use rainbow sprinkles for a birthday, red, white, and blue for 4th of July, etc.
- Make cookie bars or a cookie cake instead: Press the dough into a 9-inch square or round pan and bake until set on top and lightly golden brown.
Just look at that stack of cookie perfection!
I truly hope you love these white chocolate chip cookies as much as my husband and I did. If you try them, don’t forget to leave a comment to let me know how they turned out!
White Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour spooned and leveled (265 grams)
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch (6 grams)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup unsalted butter softened (170 grams; 1.5 sticks)
- ¾ cup packed light brown sugar (150 grams)
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar (67 grams)
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk at room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 (12-ounce) package white chocolate chips (340 grams; 1 ¾ cups)
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a handheld mixer, mix the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together for 1 to 2 minutes or until well combined. Mix in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the dry ingredients and continue mixing until just combined, then mix in the white chocolate chips on low-speed until fully incorporated into the cookie dough.
- Cover the cookie dough tightly and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. If you want to speed up the process, you may go ahead and scoop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Once the dough is almost chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line three large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and set aside.
- Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Using a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough and drop onto the prepared baking sheets. Make sure to leave a little room between each ball of cookie dough because they will spread some as they bake in the oven.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are lightly golden brown and the tops are set. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
