The best chocolate chip cookies

After the best chocolate chip cookies recipe of all time? Trained pastry chef Ella Tarn tested various versions, honing, tweaking and perfecting the blend of ingredients to find the best possible version. Our easy recipe makes chewy-yet-crisp cookies with generous chunks of milk chocolate, topped with a sprinkling of sea salt flakes. The trick to soft, chewy cookies: American-style cookies like these should have just enough crunchy crust around the edges to hold the chewy centre together. However, the cookies shouldn’t be too hard or they risk crossing over to being a biscuit. The trick is not to overbake them – they should still feel soft, almost underbaked, when you take them out of the oven (they’ll firm up as they cool). How to prevent cakey cookies: The cookies will spread as they cook, so space out well on the baking sheets. If they don’t have room to spread they’ll end up too thick with a sponge-like texture. Chilling the dough before baking helps to develop the flavour and to control the spread as the cookies bake: the outside melts first, helping the cookies to spread out at an even rate. Customisable recipe: Try adding your own inclusions to the cookie dough. Mix up the type of chocolate (we love caramelised white chocolate) or try candy-coated chocolate beans, chewy toffees or chopped nuts. See more ideas in the Know-how section, below. Avoid treats very high in sugar, such as marshmallows, which can burn. Ready for a cookie challenge? Try these distinctively wrinkly pan-bang cookies, a cult US recipe.