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These pan banging chocolate chip cookies are a little high maintenance (you have to bang the cookies multiple times throughout baking and you can't bake more than a few on a baking sheet), but they're well worth it! #chocolatechipcookies #cookies #dessert #chocolatechips

Pan Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies

The dough for these pan banging chocolate chip cookies isn't out of the ordinary, but the pan banging method (and the resulting ripples) is a little unusual. The final cookies are straight from your dreams though: chewy, soft, crispy, everything.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, cookies, dessert, nut-free, vegetarian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 48 minutes
Freezing Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 23 minutes
Servings 11 cookies
Calories 394 kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter room temperature
  • cups granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 large egg room temperature
  • teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons water
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into bite-size pieces

Instructions

  1. Line 3 baking sheets with aluminum foil, dull side up. Preheat the oven to 350F.

  2. In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and water; mix to combine. Add the flour, baking soda and salt; mix on low until combined. Add the chocolate and mix until incorporated. The dough will seem really soft, but don't worry about it.
  3. Form the dough into 3½-ounce balls (a heaping ⅓ cup each). Place 1 ball in the middle of a foil lined (dull side up) baking sheet and freeze for 20-30 minutes before baking. After you put the first baking sheet in the oven, place a second one in the freezer.
  4. Place the chilled baking sheet in the pre-heated oven and bake for 10 minutes, until the cookie is puffed slightly in the center. Lift the side of the baking sheet up about 4 inches and gently let it drop down against the oven rack, so the edges of the cookie set and the inside falls back down. After the cookies puff up again in 2 minutes, repeat lifting and dropping the pan. Repeat a few more times to create ridges around the edge of the cookie. Bake 16 to 18 minutes total, until the cookies have spread out and the edges are golden brown while the centers are much lighter and not fully cooked.

  5. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack; let cool completely before removing the cookies from the pan.

Recipe Notes

From Sarah Kieffer’s The Vanilla Bean Baking Book.

Sarah recommends 4 cookies per pan, and freezing for 15 minutes before baking. Unless you really don't care about cookies that bake together, I'd recommend starting conservative: bake 1 cookie per pan, and freeze for 20-30 minutes (not any more or less; they won't spread evenly otherwise in my experience). You can get more audacious after a few batches of cookies if you feel comfortable/get tired later.