The soft, buttery brown-sugar dough that made chocolate chip cookies so popular makes a perfect vehicle for any number of flavours and ingredients. They’re easy to mix and bake when you need a batch fast.

Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies Recipe

 

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups roughly chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, beat butter and the sugars until pale and almost fluffy. Then beat in egg and vanilla.

Add flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt and stir or beat on low until almost combined; add chocolate chunks and stir just until blended.

Drop dough by the spoonful onto a parchment-lined (or buttered) sheet and bake for 10 to 14 minutes (depending on their size) or until golden around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen large cookies.

The Variations

Chewy Orange White Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Cranberries and Pecans Add 1 tsp grated orange zest to the butter-sugar mixture and swap the dark chocolate for 1 cup chopped white chocolate, ½ cup chopped pecans and ½ cup dried cranberries (or 1 cup chopped fresh cranberries, for a burst of tartness). Bake as directed.

Inside-Out Chocolate Chunk Cookies Swap in ½ cup cocoa for ½ cup of the flour and use white chocolate instead of dark. Bake as directed.

Brown Sugar Fruitcake Cookies If you have some, swap rum extract for the vanilla. And instead of the chocolate chunks or chips, stir 2 cups of chopped dried fruit—raisins, cherries, apricots, cranberries, figs, dates and the like—into the dough along with 1 cup chopped pecans, almonds or hazelnuts. Bake as directed.

(Photo: Kevin Clark)