A single serve chocolate chip cookie, for when you just want one (giant) cookie to yourself.
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single serve chocolate chip cookie
This is a cookie for when you just want one giant, delicious chocolate chip cookie. It’s thick and soft with crisp edges, made with brown butter for extra flavor and absolutely loaded with chocolate chips.
Aaaand if you’re thinking “why in the world would I only want one cookie?” – here is my recipe for small batch chocolate chip cookies – which is very similar to this recipe and yields 8 cookies.
expert baking tips
Weigh your ingredients:
My recipes are all written in grams because it is the most accurate way to bake. When you use a kitchen scale, you ensure that your baked goods turn out as close to the written recipe as possible. Plus, the cleanup is way easier when using a scale! I will provide standard cup measurements but please note that I have not tested the recipe using cup measurements and therefore can not guarantee your recipe will come out how mine did. Here is my favorite kitchen scale.
Mix the dough carefully:
When adding in the flour, only fold the mixture just until no flour streaks remain. Over mixing the dough leads to more gluten formation, which can make the cookies thicker and more tough in texture.
chill the cookie prior to baking
I know, I know – it’s frustrating to have to wait! However, because we’re using melted brown butter, we want to give the dough time to firm up. Letting the cookie dough chill just a little bit in the freezer means that the cookies will bake up thicker.
Under bake for perfect cookies:
Cookies continue baking after they have been taken out of the oven. Once the edges turn slightly golden brown, and the cookies look just a little wet on top still, they are ready to come out. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for an additional 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.
The secret to perfectly round cookies:
Wanna know the secret to perfectly round cookies? It’s cookie scooting! Right when the cookies come out of the oven, take a bowl, cup, or biscuit cutter that is just slightly larger than your cookies and place it over one of the cookies. Gently swirl the bowl around the cookie to make the cookie perfectly round (and slightly thicker). And that’s all there is to it!
A note on oven temperature:
Ovens vary and fluctuate in temperature and might not always actually be at the temperature they claim to be at. If you love to bake like I do, I highly recommend getting an oven thermometer. They are super helpful for letting you know when your oven might be lying to you! I use this one.
ingredients for a single chocolate chip cookie:
- All purpose flour: for structure and chewiness.
- Baking soda: for helping the cookies rise.
- Salt: to help balance and bring out the sweetness of the cookies
- Unsalted butter: for tenderness and flavor. You can use salted butter in place of the unsalted, just be sure to omit the extra salt from the cookies. We’ll also be browning the butter for some extra delicious toasty flavor. If you’re looking to make this dairy-free, Miyoko’s Creamery vegan butter has the ability to brown just like regular butter and works like a charm.
- Granulated sugar & light brown sugar: a combination of both gives us cookies with crispy edges and soft and chewy centers.
- Milk: our egg replacement for these cookies – feel free to use your favorite dairy or non-dairy milk here.
- Vanilla: for flavor.
- Semi-sweet chocolate: I recommend semi-sweet or dark chocolate (or a combination of both!) Please note that if you use all chocolate chips, the cookies will bake up a little thicker, and if you use all chopped chocolate, they will be a tad thinner. In the pictures I used a combo of guittard super cookie chips & a chopped chocolate baking bar.
how to make a single chocolate chip cookie
Here’s a little look into the process of making this single serve chocolate chip cookie. The full recipe is at the end of this blog post!
- Brown the butter on the stove, then let it sit in the freezer for 5 minutes to cool down.
- Mix in both sugars, followed by the milk and vanilla.
- Mix in the dry ingredients and chocolate chips, then set the dough to chill in the freezer for 5 minutes.
- Form the cookie dough into one giant cookie dough ball, then top it with more chocolate chips, bake, and enjoy!
single serve chocolate chip cookie recipe q&a
What is brown butter?
Brown butter is super simple to make so don’t worry! It’s just regular butter that is cooked on the stove until some of the moisture evaporates, allowing the milk solids in the butter to be toasted. The result is this butter with an amber hue and little speckles that has a toasted and slightly nutty aroma.
can I double this recipe?
If you’re looking for a larger batch of cookies, check out my small batch chocolate chip cookies. They’re very similar to this recipe and yield 8 cookies.
Can I use other mix-ins?
Yes! You can use a total of 40g of any mix-ins you’d like. For example, if you want a white chocolate macadamia cookie, use ~25g white chocolate & 15g of macadamia nuts.
why did my cookies turn out more dry/crumbly/thicker than pictured?
- Measuring error: Typically, the #1 culprit for this is always not measuring the flour properly. If you use cup measurements, you run the risk of adding too much flour to the dough which can make it super dry. If you’re using cup measurements, make sure that you fluff up your flour and then spoon it into your measuring cup, rather than scooping up the flour with the measuring cup. Measuring will also be sure that you end up with the right amount of brown butter and that you cooked it for the proper amount of time.
- Overmixing: if you over-mix the dough, you will introduce more gluten into the cookies which will lead to tougher, thicker cookies. Make sure to only fold in the flour just until that last streak of flour disappears into the dough.
- Oven temperature: Like I said before, it’s possible that your oven isn’t at the temperature that it claims to be at – which is, unfortunately, more common than it should be. If your oven is hotter than 350F without your knowledge, you’ll end up with thicker, more dry cookies.
why did my cookies spread so much?
- Chilling the dough: The #1 reason for this would be that you didn’t chill the cookie dough. Although it can be frustrating to wait, the cookie dough does need to chill to give time for the butter to firm up and the ingredients to meld together so that they don’t completely spread out in the oven.
- Browning the butter: Another reason I recommend measuring your ingredients. When you brown the butter, moisture cooks off of it. So, if it wasn’t cooked for long enough then there would be extra moisture in the dough, which would make the cookies spread out more.
- Oven temperature: It could also be that your oven temperature is running lower than it claims to be. For that reason, I recommend always using an oven thermometer. The one I use is linked under “baking tools” in my amazon storefront below!
tools and ingredients:
You can find all my favorite tools and ingredients that I use on my Amazon Storefront page, here!
other recipes you might enjoy:
did you make this recipe?
I’d love to see and know your thoughts! please leave a comment and review below, and tag me on instagram @freshbeanbakery. #freshbeanbakery
Single Serve Chocolate Chip Cookie
Ingredients
- 28 g unsalted butter (2 tbsp.)
- 25 g light brown sugar (2 tbsp.)
- 12 g granulated sugar (1 tbsp.)
- 2 tsp. milk of choice
- ¼ tsp. vanilla
- 40 g all purpose flour (⅓ c.)
- ⅛ tsp. baking soda
- ⅛ tsp. salt
- 40 g semi-sweet chocolate chips (¼ c.)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Add the butter to a small saute pan or saucepan. Set the butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the butter bubbles up, then turns amber in color (this took me ~2 minutes.)
- Pour the brown butter into a small mixing bowl and set it to chill in the freezer for 5 minutes.
- Once the butter has chilled, mix in the light brown sugar and granulated sugar, followed by the milk and vanilla.
- Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix together just until a few flour streaks remain, then mix in the chocolate chips just until no flour streaks remain.
- Set the cookie dough in the freezer to chill for 5 minutes.
- Scoop out all the cookie dough and roll it into one large ball. Top the cookie with extra chocolate chips as desired. Bake for 14-16 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the middle of the cookie no longer looks “wet.”
- Allow the cookie to rest on the hot baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool (or just before enjoying it warm.) Serve and enjoy!
I am not exaggerating when I say this is the best cookie recipe I’ve ever tried. Had no idea how much flavor the browned butter adds. Thank you!!
Ahh thank you so much Georgina, I’m so happy you love the cookie!
This is the BEST cookie I’ve ever had! Not just homemade, in general, the best cookie. I’ve never left a review on a recipe but the people need to know!😂 Do yourself a favor and make this cookie. This is the 3rd time I’ve made it in a week and will be making it many more times!
Ah thank you so much Sarah – that’s so kind of you & I’m so happy you love the recipe!! ☺︎
I’ve used this recipe twice recently and used plant based butter, almond milk, and Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips to make it vegan. Such a good cookie recipe for when I don’t want a whole batch of cookies looking at me the next day lol. Thank you!
Thank you so much Jasmine, so happy to hear it turns out well when you swap for vegan ingredients! ☺︎
How can I rate this 10 stars? I’ve never left a comment on a recipe page before but I felt compelled to. These are hands down the best cookies I’ve ever had. All of your detailed tips were perfect and contributed to the gooiest, most flavorful, melt in your mouth cookie! Truly otherworldly. I will dream of this cookie. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Ah thank you so much Quinn, I’m so happy you like the recipe!! 🙂
i go back and make this recipe at least every week, it’s THAT good and soooo easy, i make it so often i’ve memorized the recipe. it’s a bit on the sweet side fair warning but i’m a sweet tooth so i don’t mind it with my ice cold cup of milk. 10000/10 recommend!!
Ah thank you so much Julie, so happy you like the recipe!! 🙂
I have a question regarding the brown butter. This part always messes me up. When I make brown butter I make extra so I can just keep it in the fridge in case I need it. But then I get confused with the measurements. So the butter has been browned what is the weight that I need for this recipe and do I still need to add the extra milk?
Hi! After browning the 28g of butter you should be left with 22g, so you’ll need 22g of brown butter – & yes you’ll definitely want to add the milk in still! ☺︎
I tried this with white chocolate chips and frozen raspberries (since I didn’t have regular chocolate chips at home). Tasted so good. Thank you for this amazing recipe!!
That sounds absolutely delicious Sarah, thank you so much! ☺︎
I love the process and goey chocolate dense flavors Yummy 😋🤤 Eric you are brilliant ❤️👌🏻👌🏻I added white chocolate instead of chocolate
I love the process and goey chocolate dense flavors Yummy 😋🤤 Eric you are brilliant ❤️👌🏻👌🏻
Its just too good and very addictive. My daughter refuses to eat any other cookie now
i have ZERO experience with baking but the cookie i made still turned out really good!! so happy i found this single serve recipe since it’s been helping me get the hang of baking without wasting a lot of ingredients.
tysm for this amazing recipe!!
Thank you so much Marie, I’m so happy you liked the cookie and I’m grateful to be a part of your baking journey! ☺︎
god i thought chocolate chip cookies really weren’t for me until i found this recipe! the substitution of the milk instead of egg saved me from wasting some other egg whites, and even though it’s single serve i actually made lil tiny cookies with the recipe looll.
they came out GODLY, best cookies i EVER made! thanks for thiiiiss definitely making more as soon as I can <3
Ah thank you so much Gigi, so happy you enjoyed this recipe & making mini cookies with it sounds so fun! ☺︎
I made these last night on a whim and I loved them!! My partner asked me to double the recipe and I ended up making 4 (still really big) cookies. I also used a mix of different semi sweet chocolate (cut up bar, small chip and big chips) so I would have variety in the cookie. These had an amazing taste and I would make them again in a heartbeat.
Thank you so much Laura, I’m so happy you both enjoyed the cookies! ☺︎
So tasty! I made this without weighing and didn’t cool down ingredients and it still came out wonderful! Would love to know the nutrition facts, I couldn’t find it on the site! Thank you!!
Omg!! I had to have some serious self control to just not eat the dough. I did white chocolate chunks. BOMB!! And of course I had to make two.
I saw this cookie recipe on Instagram and saved the post for later. I tried this recipe tonight and it’s truly the best cookie I’ve ever created 😭so crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. Thank you so much for a well made recipe! I’ll make this again and again!
Ah thank you so much Nora, I’m so happy you like it!! 🙂
what choc chip brands do you use? what brand are the mini ones?
Hi! I used a blend of ghirardelli 60% chips & their mini chips here 🙂
This is genuinely the nicest cookie I’ve ever had which is amazing because usually when I try baking cookies they come out either really cakey or thin and hard/crispy. This was SO delicious and easy to make. Also, if anyone’s interested in making it vegan, I used flora plant butter and soy milk and it worked great.
Thank you so much Molly!! You’re too kind – I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe and I’m happy to hear it turned out well with vegan ingredients! 🙂
made this cookie a couple times now! it’s really good. I don’t usually have milk at home so I sub with Greek yogurt and it comes out fine! the original sugat measurement makes it a bit too sweet for my tastes, I reduce it by a few grams and it’s still a really solid sweet chewy cookie 🙂
Omg these were so yummy! I doubled the recipe to make 2 big cookies and wow, I was not disappointed! The best part about this specific recipe is that there are no eggs required! I’ve tried multiple single serve cookie recipes where they require 1 egg yolk for just 1 cookie and I hate wasting an egg like that! So I loved that this recipe uses just a little milk instead. Honestly, sometimes these single cookie recipes taste even better than my full batch cookies lol. And it’s such a quick and easy way to fulfill my craving without having to make an entire batch! I’m totally saving this one down for the future 🙂
Thank you so much Chey! I’m so happy you enjoyed these cookies – not using an egg was a personal requirement when I was developing this recipe because I know all too well how frustrating it can be to keep the extra egg whites on hand! 🙂
Made these tonight. Measured carefully, using a scale. Followed all the instructions. Taste great but came out of the oven looking like talk, thick biscuits. I even shorted the flour by a couple grams to make sure they were thin and gooey. My oven is new and at the right temp. Take that as you will. Tweak accordingly. Thanks
Hi Ned! I’m sorry to hear they turned out tall and thick. If you were using grams and your oven was at the right temperature, it sounds like you may have accidentally over-mixed the dough once you added in the flour. I hope this helps and thank you for trying out the recipe!
Great recipe! I was out of AP flour so I used bread flour. Still turned out fantastic and I’m planning to make it again tonight while the kids are in bed.
will be trying and might post on my instagram accout, i’ll give u credit of course if that’s ok <3
Of course, I hope you love them! 🙂