These Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies are so easy and done start to finish in 30 minutes. This recipe makes the best chewy and soft chocolate chip cookies that are loaded with rich chocolate chips and with little clean up! Win!
This post was originally posted April 2019. Post was updated February 2020 to add how to photos and update recipe slightly based on feedback.
Why I love this recipe:
- There are a lot of times you don't need several dozen cookies--you just want a few. This small batch recipe is for that.
- For the times when you want to bake with the kiddos and know they don't have the patience bake more than just one sheet of cookies.
- When you want cookies, homemade cookies and you don't have enough ingredients, but you at least have enough to make a partial batch--that's where these come in!
- You hate doing extra dishes--so one bowl sounds like a dream.
- Oh, and most of all--when you just don't have the time to make a huge batch.
This simple, one bowl cookie recipe is a go to in our house for these reasons and more.
What you will need to make these cookies:
- egg yolk: this is one of the biggest differences between a small batch and a full batch. A large egg yolk is all you will need for the small batch recipe.
- baking soda: I will say this til I am blue in the face--make sure it is fresh and not expired or close to expiration. This ruins more cookies than ever necessary!
- salt: I use pink sea salt. I have a huge container of it that should last me a few years, so it's what is happening! I prefer sea salt in general in my cookie recipes.
How to make this recipe:
- Cream the butter and sugars. You will find that creaming such a small amount of butter and sugar can be a bit challenging as there isn't as much to work with. Use a deep bowl to help contain anything that may fly up at first. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.Make sure to cream for several minutes to really get it nice and fluffy. (steps 1 and 2)
- Add in the egg and vanilla and beat to incorporate. Once you are done creaming the sugar and butter, there is no need to excessiblef beat any other ingredients. You can simply mix until the ingredients are fully incorporated. (steps 3 and 4)
- Even though this is a one bowl recipe, you still want to incorporate the flour, sea salt and baking soda together before mixing it with the wet ingredients. I pour all three to the side of the dry ingredients and then gently whisk them together. Then slowly nudge a bit of the dry mix in with the wet at a time. (step 5)
- Mix in all the dry ingredients until incorporated. The dough may seem slightly crumbly (photo 6) but that is ok. In step 8 you will pull it all together!
- Fold in the chocolate chips. I often use dark chocolate chips and most of them are larger than milk or semi-sweet morsels. I have still make these with regular and they have been fine. If you really love chips in every bite, you can toss in a few extra for sure! (step 7)
- Pull all the dough together if there are any stray crumbles and then scoop the dough onto your baking sheet if you don't play to chill them at all. (step 8)
Notes:
- Butter: Make sure the butter is softened and not melted. This will make or break these cookies. You want this dough to be at room temperature before baking. If the butter is too warm, the cookies may come out flat and hard. If yours is too warm, return the dough to the fridge to allow it to chill for a few minutes.
- Don't over bake these cookies! Unless that is your preference. But if you want gooey and chewy cookies, do not overtake them. When you see the edges start to brown a bit, you should be all set.
- No chilling is required for these Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies, but you can chill for a bit if you need to cook them at a later time. Just allow them to return to room temperature before baking.
- This makes about 8 medium/large sized cookies. Mine were about 3 inches or so in diameter.
- All the chips! I went with 2/3 cup chocolate chips but honestly, you do you--add more if you would like.I used larger dark chocolate morsels because I like the way dark chocolate tends to photograph. The morsels were larger than your average sized chip. Switch up the flavor chips, chop up some chocolate as well or use chunks. The world is your chocolate chip cookie!
FAQs and Troubleshooting:
Yes. And if you do, this can cause them to flatten. After you cream the butter and sugar and beat the egg in, stir in the dry ingredients just until they are fully incorporated. That should help keep them nice and soft and full
There are a few things that may have gone wrong here:
-You could have over mixed your dough.
-Your baking soda is not fresh and has expired.
-There is not enough flour or flour was improperly measured.
-You used a warm pan--this can cause the cookies to start baking before they even hit the oven and spread thin.
This typically can mean that the dough is warmer than room temperature. If the dough is too warm, it will spread out quickly in the oven.
Pop your dough in the fridge for about 15-30 minutes or until the dough is cool and sturdy. You should be able to easily roll into balls or your scoop will form cookies that stay in form when you place them onto the baking pan.
If your dough seems very thin and runny after chilling, you still may need to add a touch more flour.
This could also be from several different things:
You added too much flour.
The dough is too cold. If you chill your dough, allow it to sit for a bit to come to approximate room temperature before baking.
A big reason here is typically the fact that they are over baked. I wait until the edges just barely start to turn brown and then remove them. They may even look undercooked when I pull them from the oven, but they will be ok. Allowing them to sit for a bit helps. This should help keep them soft and chewy, as long as all ingredients were measured properly.
To chill or not to chill the dough?
I recently tested out chilling the dough versus not. I popped the chocolate chip cookies in not chilled, chilled for 30 minutes and chilled for an hour.
If you do chill, you want to let them sit out for a minute or so before popping them in the oven. The biggest difference is how big the cookies got based on the length of time chilled.
The cookies I did not chill spread the most and the cookies chilled the longest spread the least. I still found all three cookies amazing and it's really your preference. If you find your cookies are spreading a lot more, definitely chill them!
Want to freeze this cookie dough?
No problem! I scoop them into individual cookies and pop them in a freezer safe container. They can go straight from the freezer to the oven.
Bake frozen cookie dough for about 12-14 minutes at 350°F.
CHECK OUT THESE OTHER COOKIES AND BAKED GOODS:
- CREAM CHEESE SNOWBALL COOKIES
- PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
- GLUTEN FREE BLONDIES
- CARAMEL STUFFED SNICKERDOODLES
- LEMON SUGAR COOKIES
DID YOU MAKE ONE OF MY RECIPES? LEAVE A COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW! I ALSO LOVE TO SEE YOUR LEMONS + ZEST RECIPES ON SOCIAL MEDIA–TAG ME @LEMONSANDZEST ON INSTAGRAM OR FACEBOOK!
I recently updated this recipe to add an extra tablespoon of flour to help the cookies rise a bit more. If your cookies still seem to be coming out flat, add another tablespoon.
One Bowl Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ c plus 1 T flour
- ¼ c butter, softened
- ¼ c brown sugar, packed
- ¼ c sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ⅔ c chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a medium bowl, using a hand or standing mixer, beat butter and sugars to cream. Once creamy, add in egg and vanilla and beat to incorporate.
- Shift mixture to the side and add flour, salt, and baking soda. Gently mix the dry ingredients together. Using a spoon or you mixer, stir the dry ingredients into wet to fully incorporate, scraping down the sides of the bowl if needed. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Use a cookie scoop to spoon dough onto parchment lined or silicone lined baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until edges become slightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely (or not, because in reality you will try to eat one and scald your tongue like I did.)
- Store in an airtight container.
- *** You can freeze this dough in pre-scooped cookies and bake them straight from the freezer. Bake for about 12-14 minutes if your cookies are frozen.
Video
Notes
- Don't Over bake these cookies!Unless that is your preference. But if you want gooey and chewy cookies, do not overtake them. When you see the edges start to brown a bit, you should be all set.
- No chilling is required for these Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies, but you can chill for a bit if you need to cook them at a later time. Just allow them to return to room temperature before baking.
- This makes about 8 cookies. Mine were about 3 inches or so in diameter.
- All the chips! I went with 2/3 cup chocolate chips but honestly, you do you--add more if you would like.I used larger dark chocolate morsels because I like the way dark chocolate tends to photograph. The morsels were larger than your average sized chip. Switch up the flavor chips, chop of some chocolate as well or use chunks. The world is your chocolate chip cookie!
Made these tonight. Perfect for a winter's night! These had me at "one bowl". I simplified even more by not using an electric hand mixer and creamed the sugar with very very soft butter, just mixed by hand. 11 minutes in the oven, turned out perfect. This will be a go to now since it's easy and there are less cookies to devour with my lack of self control haha.
Yay!!! So glad to hear! And yes, you can totally cream the sugar and butter by hand!
This recipe was absolutely perfect! I made a batch yesterday as my first time making cookies from scratch. They turned out so well! My son and I went ate them all haha! I'm going to make another batch tonight.
Yay!!!! I love hearing this, Selena! We make these very often as well. I keep some scooped in the freezer to grab and bake when I have a craving. I also am working on testing out doubling and tripling the recipe soon! So glad you enjoyed them!
Can I use a cookie cutter to shape them and then freeze them in that shape and bake them?
They will definitely spread a bit but depending on the shape you may be ok. IF you chill them for an hour after you use the cookie cutter they may stay in shape better.
These were delicious. I used whole wheat flour and substituted two of the tablespoons of butter with applesauce. Also used a little less sugar.
Good to know they still turn out amazing with the whole wheat flour as well. Thanks for the input!
Hands down, the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! I’ve made these cookies twice now. I doubled the batch both times so that I could put some in the freezer. My family LOVES them! Thank you for the recipe.
Yay!!!! This makes me so happy Samantha because we love them so so so much as well!
It’s a great recipe, but mostly “...pooping in the oven” from the Chill or Not to Chill section had me cracking up!
Oh my gosh I totally missed that haaaaaaaaaa
I just made a batch, but they didn’t turn out. I followed the recipe to the letter and they didn’t spread at all and the dough was SO crumbly. Any ideas what have gone wrong? The flavor was there so I’d love to get these right!
Oh bummer, so so sorry to hear this. Crumbly cookies that don't spread well usually means there is too much flour--and it honestly does not take that much extra to cause an issue. Try stirring up your flour before measuring it to aerate it a bit and this should help, make sure not to press the flour down either in the measuring cup. Hope this helps!
Thank you so much for the recipe. My 6 year old loved them. Wanted to try a small batch(since had bad experiences with other recipes) and half of them are already gone. I will be keeping this recipe for future.
Ha--they don't tend to stick around for long no matter what we do either!
Recipe was super easy and fast to make. Currently in the oven as I type this review!
Assembly of the ingredients seem to be very dry, not enough liquids so my dough is more on the crumbly side.
Took a little more effort to try and hold them together to form a cooking for the baking sheet.
Hoping they turn out!
Hope they turned out ok for you!!
One and done with the bowl, spatula, a sheet pan, measuring spoons for the delicious fast cookies? I'm in! And there'll be many repeat performances!
So so good to hear! We have these on repeat around here. I love freezing a few scoops of dough for the times you really need a fresh cookie!! Thanks so much for sharing!
LOVE this recipe - thank you! Pretty sure these are what’s getting my husband and I through quarantine. We make them every other week or so. Perfect for the two of us!
Oh my gosh I hear you!!!! Thank goodness for cookies right now is all I can say. Thanks so much for sharing Nd!!
These cookies are perfect for when you just want a few, my family raved about them and almost all of them told me to save the recipe, which I did of course, I’ll be excited to try other cookie recipes from you!
So happy to hear this Jack!! And I love that you get a handful of cookies versus 3 dozen. I really don't always need that much! Have a great day!
If I could give these cookies a thousand stars, I would.
I have mixed by hand, hand mixer, or stand mixer, and they all turn out amazing. Anymore, I triple the recipe to make a "normal batch". I cook right at 9 minutes, and they turn out perfect.
Often, I will make cookie dough balls and freeze them to save on the work next time. If they are frozen, I cook for 11 minutes.
I like to think I'm a chocolate chip cookie connoisseur, and I truly believe these are the best. Every time I make them for people, they also always say how delicious they are.
100/10, I highly recommend them!
Maria! You have totally made my day! Thanks you so so so much for this review. I appreciate it so much and thanks for the input on frozen cookies too. Have a great day!