Cookies

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes, because it's so quick and easy and delicious!

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Toasted coconut, crunchy toffee, and chocolate chips enveloped in a sweet, buttery cookie with golden crisp edges and soft chewy middles. What’s not to love??

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes, because it's so quick and easy and delicious!

About 6 years ago, I decided to have a bake sale in conjunction with a yard sale we were having. I emailed all my favorite bloggers at the time and asked them to send me their top bake sale recipe. My plan was to “market” my bake sale as a “blogger bake sale,” and have all the recipes submitted by my friends made up and ready to sell.

Several people saw my signs and excitedly showed up, hoping to meet really cool food bloggers with samples of their recipes… ????.

And instead, they found me (just me) with a table of baked goods I had clumsily made in our little apartment kitchen. Mind you, this was back when I used margarine instead of butter ????– so there was still quite a bit of development in my baking abilities yet to occur.

Woops.

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes, because it's so quick and easy and delicious!

Annnnnnyway. Embarrassing memories aside– I only bring it up, because it was that bake sale that landed me with this cookie recipe. A friend of mine gave me the recipe, and I fell instantly in love with it!

Albeit, I’ve tweaked it a little bit to use my favorite Quick & Easy CCC as the cookie base instead of her original recipe. But it’s the same concept– toasted coconut, toffee bits, and chocolate chips. So, so good!

I was pleasantly surprised at the texture of these cookies. The toffee, of course, lend a buttery crunch to each bite. But, to me, the real star of the show is the toasted coconut! Besides being deliciously fragrant and tasty, the coconut adds another layer of crispy texture to the cookies.

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes, because it's so quick and easy and delicious!

Toasted Coconut & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is one of my favorite cookie recipes, because it's so quick and easy and delicious!

I absolutely adore these cookies. Crisp, buttery, golden edges. Crunchy, crispy toffee and coconut mixed with warm, melty chocolate in every bite. Believe me, you are going to fall head over heels for this recipe too!

PS- did I mention this is a spin-off of my Quick & Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies?? That means NO mixer, NO chilling, and NO spreading! Seriously, best. recipe. everrrrrrrrr.

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

Quick & Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

I’ve had several readers mention to me recently that they miss the chocolate chip cookie experiment.

And you know what? I do too.

You guys know that warm, fresh chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven are my very favorite dessert in the world.  Donuts, pancakes, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and homemade bread all have a special place in my heart. But nothing, NOTHING, ever beats out a warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie in my book. Ever.

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

In doing the chocolate chip cookie experiment, I’ve found several recipes that I’ve really loved and have made on several different occasions. But last weekend when I was craving my favorite cookie, I didn’t feel like doing my usual 10-second increments and rotations in the microwave to speed soften the butter to the exact perfectness of room temperature.

Annnnnd I just didn’t feel like dirtying up the KitchenAid mixer and dough paddle that I would have to hand wash. I was just feeling that lazy.

But I really did want cookies.

So I did some online research looking through cookie recipes that called for melted butter with no chill time, and patch-worked together my own version.

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!
This is butter straight from the fridge after 45 seconds in the microwave. It’s 90% melted, but some of the butter is still retaining a solid form (albeit very soft).

Typically, you don’t melt the butter in a cookie recipe unless you plan to chill the dough before baking, because the cookies will spread all over the baking sheet into a flat mess.

Which is what I fully expected to pull out of the oven when I experimented with the first batch of this recipe. But instead, when I opened the oven door, I found thick, puffy, PERFECT cookies! I made the recipe two more times, just to be sure it wasn’t a fluke. And every single time, I’ve been rewarded with the same results.

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

Using melted butter and getting to forego the chill time speeds up the cookie making process considerably. And it eliminates a couple of extra dishes that can’t be tossed in the dishwasher (if you usually use a KitchenAid mixer or similar like I do).

It’s literally as simple as microwaving the butter, add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl, and stirring with a spoon. Which takes all of maybe 5 minutes. Pop ’em in the oven for 9 more, and ta-da! It’s cookie time!!

I’m in love with this recipe. It might be my favorite yet, just for the simplicity of it.

However, I’m dying to know how it works in YOUR kitchen! It seems like every oven does things a little differently, and I’m wondering if anyone will make these and find that they spread out a ton. So I’m going to turn on the comments for this post below, and I’d love for you guys to whip up a batch one of these days and let me know what kind of results you get. ????????????

One bowl, no mixer, no chill time, NO FUSS chocolate chip cookies. This recipe calls for melted butter, so all you need is a sturdy spoon and a bowl for fresh cookies right out the oven in under 15 minutes!

Speaking of favorite recipes… a lot of you have been emailing me wanting to know what the updated favorites are in my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. So here are my latest Top 5:

  1. Today’s Quick & Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies (I can’t help it, I’m so lazy that to me these are just too perfect!)
  2. Chewy Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies
  3. KAF Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
  4. DoubleTree Hotel Chocolate Chip Cookies
  5. KAF Chocolate Chip Cookies
Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

Toffee Chunk Brownie Cookies Recipe

Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

I first published this recipe almost exactly 6 years ago. And while it was a delicious idea at the time, I’ve learned a lot about baking cookies in the past 6 years and felt like it was time for this recipe to evolve a bit.

I wanted fudgier centers, chewier edges, and even more chocolate chunks and toffee bits than the first version had. I also wanted crackly tops, just like brownies have.

So of course I turned to my FAVORITE brownie mix cookie base recipe.

Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

Just look at that gooey cookie dough! It’s dreamy. Like fudge. Or brownie batter, since that’s basically what it is. Honestly. I could an entire bowl of just the dough.

This recipe makes THEE best chocolate cookies. And the recipe is really so simple. All you need is a brownie mix and a few simple ingredients that I’m sure you already have on hand (besides the chocolate chunks and toffee, be sure to pick those up if you don’t stock up like I do ????).

You won’t even need a mixer for these. One bowl, one spoon, badda bing, badda boom.

Deep, dark chocolate brownie cookies loaded with chocolate chunks and milk chocolate toffee bits. Crackly tops, fudgy centers, and chewy edges.

Pull up a big glass of cold milk and get ready to enjoy yourself. These cookies are 100% chewy, fudgy, and everything that’s right in the world.

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

Thick and Chewy Snickerdoodles Recipe

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

These are the softest, dreamiest, buttery, pillowy snickerdoodles on the planet.

Have I tried all the snickerdoodles on the planet? Well, no. But it’s really hard to imagine that there are any out there better than these.

 

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

I use two very special ingredients to make these so good.

It’s a little out of the common way in a cookie recipe, but this first special ingredient makes a big difference: egg yolks. ONLY egg yolks. THREE egg yolks, to be precise. ????

I really don’t like cake-y snickerdoodles. I feel like they dry out super fast, which makes them good for only the day of. Using three egg yolks and none of the whites solves this problem. Egg yolks add moisturizing fats and emulsify the dough. They make baked goods fudgier, while egg whites tend to make them cake-y.

I wanted each bite of these cookies to be moist, and soft, and “fudgy,” even days later. So in went the egg yolks! (Save the whites for this Healthy Honey Whole Wheat Banana Bread. SO GOOD!)

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

The second super star ingredient is…. cream of tartar!

No big surprise there. Most people already know that a fabulous snickerdoodle MUST have cream of tartar. Can you substitute baking powder? Sure. But it won’t be quite the same. Cream of tartar gives these cookies that signature tangy flavor that all great snickerdoodles have.

Thick and chewy snickerdoodles are so easy to make from scratch! These are warm and fresh from the oven in less than 25 minutes.

Side note… see all those cracks around the edges? Don’t worry, that won’t happen to yours. My family kept eating the cookies from the first two batches as they came out of the oven– before I had a chance to photograph them! So the batch you see pictured was made from dough that had been refrigerated for over 24 hours. I forgot to leave them on the counter to thaw before baking, so I smashed them down a bit with a glass before sticking them in the oven (that’s where the cracks came from).

Enjoy!!!

Chewy, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies on the outside and delicious dark chocolate on the inside!

Chocolate Florentine Cookies Recipe

Chewy, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies on the outside and delicious dark chocolate on the inside!

Chewy, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies on the outside and delicious dark chocolate on the inside!

Today’s recipe is from waaaaaaaaaaay back in the archives. In fact, I think I remember this being the first recipe I ever posted. I had been blogging for several months by then, but I wasn’t posting recipes up until that point because I was still trying to sell my baked goods via my blog.

I am SO glad I gave up on that dream! Whew!

I get asked all the time “why don’t you just start a bakery?”

Oh, let me count the reasons!! Hm, how about the ridiculous hours, startup costs, needing an actual storefront, either paying employees or burning myself out, having to work out of the house, customer service, and about 8 billion other really valid reasons. But really, it comes down to this… why on earth would I trade the sweetest at-home job on the planet for all that other stuff? And, in all probability, probably make less money doing it!

Yeah, no thank you. I definitely dodged a bullet when I jumped that ship and discovered blogging! And I guess I have to give this recipe some credit for that decision ????. So here you have it– the cookie recipe that employed me as a blogger for the first time!

Chewy, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies on the outside and delicious dark chocolate on the inside!

Ok. So maybe some of you don’t know what a florentine cookie is (I totally didn’t the very first time I stumbled across this recipe, so don’t feel bad), so let’s start with that.

Today’s (American) Florentine cookie has actually drastically evolved from the original European Florentine biscuit, which was made of dried fruit and nuts with a chocolate drizzle. As you’ll see, my recipe uses NO dried fruit and only a handful of chopped almonds to add some crunchy texture. Instead, it’s mostly made up of melted butter, sugar, and oats.

Fortunately, today’s Florentines do still include the chocolate ????. But we’re sandwiching it in between TWO cookies instead of drizzling it on top, because… well, more cookie and more chocolate. Duh.

All versions of this cookie are meant to be thin and lacy with crispy edges and a slightly chewy center. Which is why it’s really important to follow the directions in the recipe exactly and use MELTED butter, and then furthermore, to add the other ingredients to the butter while still over low heat instead of adding the butter to the other ingredients in a separate bowl.

It’s counterintuitive if you do much cookie baking, but keeping the butter warm all the way up until baking will ensure that the cookies spread thin instead of puffing up in the middle like a normal cookie would.

Plus– less dishes ????.

Chewy, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies on the outside and delicious dark chocolate on the inside!

These cookies are so, so yummy. Especially if you’re a texture freak like me!! The chewy centers, crispy edges, crunchy almonds, and chocolate in the center all come together to create like the most perfect cookie sandwich experience ever. EVER!

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Chewy Double Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies Recipe

A super chewy cookie full of dark and milk chocolate chunks.

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

If you’ve been around Something Swanky for the past year, you know that I am on a quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I’ve been chronicling my quest, sharing each recipe with you and my thoughts on what makes each recipe great or… not so much.

If you need a refresher (I know these posts have been getting father and father apart), here are my top 5 favorites:

5. Martha Stewart’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

4. AllRecipes.com #1 Rated Chocolate Chip Cookie

3. DoubleTree Hotel Chocolate Chip Cookies

2. KAF Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. ???? KAF Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies ????

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

I’ll be the first to admit that most of the chocolate chip cookie recipes have started to blur together. While I haven’t tried a recipe yet that I didn’t enjoy, those five have really stood out among the others.

And where does this recipe fall?

This recipe, Dahlia Bakery’s All-American Chocolate Chunk Cookies (a recommendation from one of my readers), might have just made it to my new favorite. Or at least my second. I’ll need to do a few more batches to know for sure, but either way– this is a darn good chocolate chip cookie.

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

A lot of the reason these cookies are so good is because you need to use a really good, high quality chocolate. Two high-quality chocolates, actually. I chopped up 1/2 of two different Trader Joes pound plus bars for my cookies. I use TJ’s chocolate in my cookies whenever I can. Most other bakers I’ve talked to agree it is the best in cookie baking.

As the title implies, there’s double the chocolate in this recipe! Milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chunks really take over the dough. This is a seriously chocolate-y cookie, in the best of ways. Be sure you have a tall glass of milk on hand!

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Another thing I really like about these cookies: you cream the butter and sugar together for a full 5 minutes. What does this mean?

It means you are seriously aerating these cookies. Adding that extra air ultimately helps them puff up in the oven. Which in turn leads to a bigger “deflate” after they’ve been removed from the heat. Which means thicker, chewier edges.

And that makes me really happy.

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

The last thing that I really love about these cookies? They.are.huuuuuuuge.

I’ve said it before a million times, but I’ll say it again. When I eat a chocolate chip cookie, I want it to be the size of my face. And if it’s not the size of my face, it had better at least be the size of my hand. I don’t like small cookies!

Honestly. Why do small cookies even exist?

Anyway. THESE cookies are not small. Using an ice cream scooper, you scoop 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie! That’s about as big as you can go without having to get drastically creative with the bake time and temp. I experimented with a few bake times for these cookies, and I was really happy with 10 minutes in my oven. It kept the centers soft and slightly underdone with golden, chewy edges.

This is my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

If you’re a chocolate chip cookie freak like I am, put this recipe on your must-make list right away! It will be an instant favorite in your kitchen 🙂

This is a recipe from my local bakery and it is SO good! Peanut butter smeared on top of chocolate chip cookie dough and topped with M&Ms. EASY too :)

Bakery Style Peanut Butter Swirl Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

These easy, three-ingredient bakery-style Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter cookies will knock your socks off! Crispy edges, soft centers, and heavy on the peanut butter please.

This is a recipe from my local bakery and it is SO good! Peanut butter smeared on top of chocolate chip cookie dough and topped with M&Ms. EASY too :)

Truth: I was thisclose to not posting this recipe. But my my deep and abiding love for these peanut buttery cookies trumped my hesitation, and here we are ????.

Let’s go ahead and take care of the elephant in the room: these cookies are not pretty. They’re not sexy. You’ll find no shiny, melting pools of chocolate here. They aren’t thick and fluffy. You intentionally overbake, and they are irregularly shaped. And guess what else?

These cookies are not even made from scratch.

I know. ????

Still with me?

Good. Because these cookies are going to knock your socks off. I promise.

This is a recipe from my local bakery and it is SO good! Peanut butter smeared on top of chocolate chip cookie dough and topped with M&Ms. EASY too :)

How This All Started

My mom and I visit a nearby deli for lunch pretty often. And by “pretty often,” I mean 4 or 5 days a week. It’s a problem, really. We’re addicted to the sweet potato fries (omg). But I could really close my eyes and point to just about anything on the menu and know I’ll like it. It’s that kind of place. I could eat their chicken salad all day long and be so happy.

In addition to their sandwiches of all sorts, this deli has a fully stocked case of baked goods at the check out. And on top of the case, they haphazardly strew these saran-wrapped GINORMOUS peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

These cookies are thin and crispy around the edges. And they have this thick, luscious swirl of peanut butter that winds all the way through the cookie. They top theirs with Reese’s Pieces (which I actually prefer), but I used M&MS in this post so I could use Valentine’s colored candy (priorities people!).

cookies with M&Ms

And Then…

When I was pregnant (and for a while after), I picked up one of these cookies every visit. I’d wait until I got in my car to break off a piece, thinking I could just eat a little bit and save the rest for later.

After one bite, I just can’t control myself. They are SO GOOD!

I spent weeks trying to work out the logistics of how I could replicate the cookie at home. How do you get that thick peanut butter swirl and layer on top? I toyed with a few ideas, none of which were very promising, before finally asking the cashier at the deli about who made their cookies (they have an outside vendor for most of the baked goods).

Now, I was prepared to hunt down this baker and beg for her peanut butter swirling secrets. As it turned out, no begging required. According to the cashier, the cookies are made in house and that the recipe is as simple as this:

“We just smush three chocolate chip cookies together, spread peanut butter on top, and stick some Reese’s Pieces on top of that.”

cookies on a white plate

She was right– it was that easy. It only took me one try to make an exact duplicate at home (so dangerous). I used frozen cookie dough, since I was pretty confident they weren’t making dough from scratch there at the deli. And then I spread on the peanut butter and candy, just like she said, and VOILA! My favorite cookie made right in my kitchen.

Easy peasy.

So there you have it– it’s not elegant, and it’s certainly no culinary feat whatsoever. But, frozen cookie dough and all, it’s one seriously good cookie.