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No-chill Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

| Cookies, Desserts, Recipe for Two, Recipes, Small-batch Dessert

This easy recipe for Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies makes six perfect cookies in 20 minutes.

I call these cookies my instant-gratification chocolate chip cookies because they go from cookie desire to cookie reality in 20 minutes.

Overhead photo of small-batch chocolate chip cookies.

These photos have been updated. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place. 🙂

The Best Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

This recipe is designed to make the best chocolate chip cookies possible FAST. It uses melted butter so there is zero waiting time for butter to come to room temperature AND you don’t have to chill the dough.

So you can throw these cookies together with no planning needed and then pop them right into the oven.

It will make half-a-dozen chocolate chip cookies, and they come out soft, a little chewy, and packed full of gooey, melty chocolate chips.

How you choose to distribute those six cookies is up to you, though I vote for being a cookie monster and eating two for breakfast and then hiding the rest of them at the back of your freezer so you don’t have to share.

Hand holding a gooey chocolate chip cookie that's been split in half.

How to Make Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

  1. Start with melted and slightly cooled butter. Your butter should NOT be hot to the touch as it can cause bits of your egg to cook if it’s too warm. Mix the butter with granulated sugar and brown sugar.
  2. Add the yolk from a large egg and vanilla. Make sure you’re working with a large egg or you might not have enough liquid in your dough for it all to come together.
  3. Add flour, measured precisely, and the other dry ingredients. Flour measurement is really important in small-batch recipes. Measure by weight or using the spoon and sweep method (stir the flour in your container to fluff it up and then spoon it into your measuring cup, sweep excess off with the flat of a knife). Too much flour can lead to a dry, sandy dough.
  4. Add chocolate chips. This recipe calls for semi-sweet, but you can use any chips you prefer (or add M&Ms and make M&M Cookies).
  5. Bake. Do not overbake your cookies! Bake just until the cookies look set and then pull them from the oven. They might still seem a little gooey, but they’ll continue cooking on the hot baking sheet as it cools.

Tips and Tricks

Can I freeze these cookies? Yes! Just store the cookies in an airtight container or freezer bag and they’ll keep for up to 2 months in the freezer. Give them five minutes at room temperature to soften a bit before eating or enjoy them frozen on a hot summer day.

Can I double the recipe? Yes! If you want to double the recipe, you can do so with no changes or use one whole egg instead of two yolks.

Cookie Troubleshooting

If you’re having trouble with your cookies, here are a couple troubleshooting tips that might help:

My dough is dry/crumbly: This is usually caused by too much flour in the dough (make sure you’re measuring it by weight or the spoon and sweep method) or it can happen when you get a particularly small egg yolk, so there isn’t enough liquid for everything to mix well. To fix crumbly dough, add a little milk or water by the half teaspoon, just enough so that everything comes together and there are no dry bits of flour at the bottom of the bowl, and your dough should be good to go.

My cookies didn’t spread: There are a couple of things that can cause this. One is (again) because there’s too much flour in the dough. Next time make sure to measure by weight or the spoon and sweep method. Changing the recipe, particularly cutting the amount of sugar, can also cause the cookies not to spread as much as they should.

Soft small-batch chocolate chip cookie on parchment paper.

More Small-batch Cookie Recipes

Or check out my entire Small-batch Cookie Recipe Archive.

This recipe uses just one egg yolk. Check out these Egg White Recipes for ideas on what to do with the leftover egg white.

Overhead photo of small-batch chocolate chip cookies.

No-chill Small-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

Easy small-batch chocolate chip cookies that use melted butter and require no chill time so you can enjoy them almost instantly!
4.97 from 192 votes
Print Pin
Course: Dessert
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Servings (Hover or Click to Change Yield): 6
Calories: 282kcal
Author: Tracy

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup (80g) all-purpose flour measured by weight or the spoon and sweep method*
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup (2oz) butter melted and slightly cooled
  • 1/3 cup (66g) brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (25g) granulated sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup (3oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
  • In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter and brown and granulated sugars. Add egg yolk and vanilla and whisk until well-combined. Stir in the flour mixture until just mixed and fold in the chocolate chips.
  • Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls (just under two ounces) onto your prepared cookie sheet (for the most perfectly round cookies, roll into ball first), and bake for 9 to 12 minutes, until the cookies just look set. Cool on the cookie sheet and enjoy!

Notes

*To measure using the Spoon and Sweep Method, spoon flour into your measuring cup and sweep excess off with the flat of a knife. This will give you the most accurate measurement next to weighing.
If your dough is dry or crumbly, you probably ended up with a particularly small egg yolk so there wasn't enough liquid in the dough. You can add a little milk or water by the half teaspoon, just enough so that everything comes together and there are no dry bits of flour at the bottom of the bowl.
Did you make this recipe?I'd love to see it! Tag @BakingMischief or hashtag it #BakingMischief.

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Comments

  1. Kelly says

    5 stars
    These were perfect and so easy! Somehow fluffy and still soft in the center just like I love. Clean up was done by the time they were ready, gotta love it!

    Reply

  2. daniah says

    one of the last times I made cookies they turned out flat with humps in the middle but these turned out good and they were not flat and I got compliments on them Thanks for the good recipe

    Reply

  3. Mary says

    5 stars
    I have officially become the cookie maker for everyone I know thanks to this recipe!! 10/10 only tweak is sometimes I add a bit more egg yolk! Love it!

    Reply

  4. Laura says

    5 stars
    Soo good! I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies wrong all this time! These came together quickly and were the perfect consistency, had to add a little cream because my dough was a little dry but all good after that.

    Reply

  5. Nunya says

    5 stars
    My first shot at chocolate chip cookies and they rocked!! Thank you Tracy! Love the recipe, the website, and your book!

    Reply

  6. Kelsey says

    5 stars
    10 out of 10. The only thing I do different is use soften butter! Seriously the perfect cookie. They are always gone in one day.

    Reply

  7. Gigi says

    Love the texture of the cookie. Soft and chewy… will lessening the sugars affect the outcome of the cookie? I find it a little too sweet, tho im not sure if its bec of the chocolate chips i used (bittersweet). Next time i’ll try using dark chips

    Reply

    • Tracy says

      Yes, cutting the sugar will change the texture of the cookies. Sugar helps the cookies spread, so depending on how much you cut, they will probably come out thicker. I’d try using dark chocolate first and see if that cuts the sweetness enough and then experiment with how much sugar you can cut (start with cutting the sugar by 25%) while still maintaining the texture you like. Hope that helps!

      Reply

  8. Natalie says

    Holy moly these are my new favorite cookie. I doubled the recipe, added a mixture of semi sweet, milk chocolate, white chocolate, and toffee bits. I didn’t have vanilla but used maple syrup instead and you’d never be able to tell. Chilled the dough just long enough for the butter to harden up. Sprinkled a tiny bit of sea salt on them before baking and OH. MY. GOSH. Absolute best cookie I’ve had in a long time!!

    Reply

      • Jamie says

        Thank you! I used LBS because I figured there might be more room for error with DBS. Turned out great.

        I did leave them in the oven a bit long. 12 minutes was ok, it didn’t kill them, but I should have pulled them out at 10. They looked crackly, like those crinkle cookies, but they weren’t dry, just crunchy at the edges and softer and chewier in the middle.

        We ate a couple tonight and were pretty happy with them as they are. I should try them next week at 10 minutes’ bake time and see if that fixes the aesthetics so they look more like those pictured. Then I will know I baked them the way you intended.

        Thanks a ton for the quick reply! 🙂 We are happy campers tonight.

  11. Diana says

    5 stars
    I love these cookies! This is my favorite recipe ever. The only issue I have is when I double the ingredients, the cookies spread out a lot even if I chill the dough in the fridge. I use a scale so measuring is not an issue. I wonder what the problem could be? So now when I want a bigger batch I just make the recipe twice, but I would like to do them doubling the ingredients and using the whole egg. Maybe using a whole egg is the problem? Thanks in advance!

    Reply

    • Tracy says

      Hi Diana, yes, it’s the whole egg that causes this. There’s more liquid in a whole egg than in 2 yolks, so the cookies are going to spread more. If you want to recreate exactly the same cookie experience, you’ll want to just use 2 yolks.

      Reply

  14. Sibyl says

    5 stars
    Delicious! Thanks for sharing this recipe.it is a good size for 2 people.
    If I make more we eat more (not a good idea!)

    Reply
4.97 from 192 votes (93 ratings without comment)

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