Golden crust, thick and chewy edges and a soft gooey interior (with optional molten pockets of chocolate chunks) – these are the best features of perfect chewy cookies!

Baking chewy (chocolate chip) cookies with NOMU MiniMakes Small Batch Baking kits is super easy, and once you understand the basic ingredients and method, you can adapt the base recipe to create a whole lot of your own variations with consistently delicious results. Ready to become a master? Let’s go!

The Ingredients

Our MiniMakes Vanilla and Chocolate Cookie Dough Mixes are truly magical in their versatility, as both thick chewy cookies and crisp snap cookies can be made from the same mix and ingredients!

While snap cookies make use of softened butter and an egg yolk, perfect chewy cookies get their delicious texture from the use of melted butter and a whole egg.

• Melted butter: Unlike MiniMakes snap cookies, chewy cookies use melted, not softened, butter. This gives them a soft, fudgy interior rather than a cakey one. Melt your butter gently in the microwave – do not let it boil and bubble excessively – and then set it aside until cool to the touch. Melted butter that is too hot can partially cook the eggs when combined.

• Eggs: We use large free-range eggs for all our MiniMakes recipes. Make sure your eggs are at room temperature for baking to help with proper emulsion and even mixing.

• Chocolate (optional): Which chocolate you use for your chocolate chip cookies comes down to a matter of preference. Couverture chocolate, like Lindt or any bean-to-bar brand, has a fantastic flavour and silky texture, and melts easily into molten pools. For big, thick chunks of chocolate, chop up a slab of Cadbury Dairy Milk or Bournville. Sometimes you may want to use a combination of chocolate for the best of both worlds! We don’t recommend using chocolate drops since they are designed to hold their shape during baking – that means no soft pockets of rich melted chocolate.

Tip: Find the base recipe for classic chewy cookies on your MiniMakes box, or have a look at our Chewy Vegan Vanilla and Chocolate Cookie recipes for plant-based alternatives!

The Method

There are two common methods for making chewy cookies, one using softened butter and the other melted butter. For MiniMakes, we use melted butter to create that irresistible gooey interior.

1. Mix the butter, sugar and eggs: Whisk together the cooled melted butter and sugar (sachet 1 in your MiniMakes box) until combined, then whisk in the egg until fully emulsified and incorporated. There’s no need to mix for long; in fact, any aeration caused by excessive whisking could contribute to a cakier texture.

2. Mix in the dry ingredients: Add the cookie mix (sachet 2) and chocolate, if using, and stir until just combined into a soft dough. For perfectly soft and chewy cookies, avoid overmixing the dough as this can result in a tough, rubbery texture. (Read more about the issue of overmixing in our Golden Rules of Baking post).

3. Chill the dough: For thicker, chewier cookies and enhanced flavour, cover and chill the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours. While this step is optional, we highly recommend it for prefect chewy cookies with a premium texture and flavour!

4. Prepare: When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven and line a baking tray or two with baking paper. We recommend using fan-assisted convection mode at 160°C to help create a chewy crust without overbaking the centre. (Read more about How Oven Setting Affect Your Bakes here.)

5. Shape: Portion the dough into 12 even pieces (you can use a scale if you’d like to be super accurate). Roll each portion into a ball and gently press it flat until 1cm thick. For super aesthetic cookies with molten pools of chocolate, push a few extra pieces of chopped chocolate into the top of the balls before flattening.

6. Bake: Space the cookies evenly onto the prepared baking tray and place in the centre of your oven. If you’re baking multiple trays at once, make sure to use a fan-assisted convection mode to evenly distribute the heat. Follow the recommended baking time (remember that the exact baking time may vary due to oven temperature fluctuations) until the cookies are set and just baked through. Avoid overbaking, as this will result in a dry, cakey texture.

To know when your cookies are perfectly baked, the crust should be puffed and set, but the centre should still be very soft. This is because the cookies will continue to cook from the residual heat of the oven tray, so by the time they’re completely cooled they will be *chefs kiss*.

Bakeware

While chewy choc chip cookies are an OG for a reason, the cookie dough can also be baked in other shapes and forms for different variation recipes. Make sure to consider the change in baking time when chopping and changing your bakeware.

Chewy Cookie Troubleshooting Guide

DRY AND CAKEY TEXTURE: Avoid overmixing the dough as this can create a tough, chewy texture. Make sure not to overbake your cookies as they will continue to cook from the residual heat after baking.

THIN COOKIES: Chill the dough before baking to help prevent excessive spreading.

MISSHAPEN COOKIES: Chilling your dough will help the cookies to maintain their shape during baking. To even out any haphazard shapes, shimmy a large round cookie cutter around each cookie while they’re still warm from the oven to refine their shape. If the edges of your cookies are too hard to reshape, it’s often a tell that they’re overbaked.

BURNT BASES: Make sure to line your baking tray with baking paper or a silicone baking mat to prevent the cookies from sticking to the tray and burning. Reduce the baking temperature slightly if necessary.

Know that you know how to bake perfect chewy cookies, have a look at our other Cookie 101 blog post to become a master of the snap cookie!

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