These miraculous cookies are somehow even easier, faster, and—I'll say it—better than the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag.
There is no waiting, no ambiguity—is my butter soft enough? room temp eggs…even when it’s 90°F?—about when to pass go. (Butter: Cold from the fridge. Eggs: Cold from the fridge. Go!)
But despite their speed and ease, they are the best sort of molten puddle cookies—buttery-bronze edges with a rippled give through the middle, and layers of pooling bittersweet chocolate throughout. There is nothing shortcut or half-measure about them.
I knew that they had to be a part of Simply Genius cookbook (which is finally, four years later, out today). The book was built around exactly this kind of smart, uncompromising recipe, with a desserts chapter driven by the promise that you don’t need a stand mixer, food processor, or blowtorch (or hours of prep time) to make memorable treats like this. Thankfully, Tara O’Brady, the cookie’s brilliant creator, agreed to share them with us.
When I first stumbled across the recipe on Tara’s blog Seven Spoons, their unassuming name drew me in: Basic, Great Chocolate Chip Cookies. Only later did I realize they’ve ridden wave after wave of popularity since Tara’s Seven Spoons cookbook debuted in 2015. They go by a tidy acronym (#BGCCCs) to those in the know, and were even recently referred to as “the best cookie recipe on the internet,” by Jesse Szewczyk on The Kitchn.
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Top Comment:
“I tried the recipe last night and did not get the results that we are seeing. I was disappointed but will keep looking for that perfect easy CC recipe.
Thanks for the video.”
Their secrets? The right combination of gently melted butter and fridge-cold eggs to hit the perfect dough temperature for spreading. Chopped chocolate (or discs or feves—anything but stabilized chips)—to melt into layers and force the dough outward. The hefty 3-tablespoon portion—rolled into a ball, with no foot to restrain them—to give plenty of topography to crisp, ripple, crisp.
This was my—basic, great—dream for this cookbook: A collection of timeless recipes so simple they’ll bend around whatever is happening in your life, and so genius you never want to stop making them.
Got a Genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at genius@food52.com.
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From our new podcast network, The Genius Recipe Tapes is lifelong Genius hunter Kristen Miglore’s 10-year-strong column in audio form, featuring all the uncut gems from the weekly column and video series. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss out.
I'm an ex-economist, lifelong-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007, before returning to the land of Dutch Crunch bread and tri-tip barbecues in 2020. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."
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These were pretty good cookies. I am not a fan of enormous cookies or soft cookies, and these are both, but the flavor is generally good, with some caramelization of the sugar. The chocolate (I used Lindt 60%) spread as advertised in the recipe- it doesn't really come off as a chocolate chip cookie, more like a cookie with some chocolate in it, and I miss the solid hit of chocolate you get from chips; I also miss walnuts. I tried a few at half size (22g. dough), and it worked well enough; the cookies were noticeably crisper and a reasonable size, suiting my taste, but the chocolate is more attenuated. The high proportion of flour to fat made surprisingly little difference, with the cocoa butter perhaps serving as substitute for some butter.
ps These cookies did not store well, possibly because of the low fat content; though in an air tight container, they had a noticeably dry feeling after just a day. Edible, but definitely a step in the wrong direction.
Made these cookies two days ago the recipe is definitely a keeper..my kids and friends loved them and they will go into my cookie rotation. Plus they were as simple as can be. All the way around they were successful.
I tried the recipe last night and did not get the results that we are seeing. I was disappointed but will keep looking for that perfect easy CC recipe. Thanks for the video.
I'm sorry to hear it—thank you for letting us know. May I ask if you were measuring by volume or weight? (Weight will give you the closest to Tara's results.) Let us know if you'd like to troubleshoot.
I'm a little curious about this comment- the recipe calls for sheet pans rather than cookie sheets, and I don't see any references to folded liners, it simply says to line the pans with parchment.
Hm- tried fast forwarding (I'm not going to watch 12 minutes of video)- it appears when the cookies are put on the she3edt pan the parchment is simply lying there; the parchment does appear to have been folded into a rectangle at some point- for storage, maybe?- is that what you're referring to? It does seem rather odd.
Probably- I reuse parchment all the time; it can get a little funky and grows brittle after a while, but with luck a piece can last a half dozen or so uses.
I do the same King Arthur has a post where they talk about reusing parchment as they do until it is falling apart (employee owned company). I love this recipe as well it delicious easy.
Thanks Kristen and others. I will try to salvage my parchment paper in the future and give it a try. I keep a segment of parchment paper in my microwave in the event of spills or overflows, but never considered re-using it after use in my oven. I guess I thought the heat might cause the paper qualities to diminish for baking. Good to know!
The heat does make the paper brittle; after a couple of uses I don't think I'd try folding it.
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