Super Chewy and Nutty Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies

Common Ingredient Substitutions and Sources

• Rye Flour: I like Bob’s Red Mill Organic Dark Rye Flour or King Arthur Baking Company’s Organic Medium Rye Flour when making this recipe! Medium or dark rye flour works best in the cookies (it makes them more flavorful).
  
  
• Kosher Salt: Learn why kosher salt is the best salt for baking recipes in this blog post. But in a pinch, you can replace the kosher salt in the recipe with half its amount in table salt.
  
  
• Brown Sugar: Either light or dark brown sugar works in the recipe. Dark brown sugar will give your cookies a subtle caramel flavor.
  
  
• Chocolate: Check out my blog post on the best chocolate for making chocolate chip cookies. For these rye chocolate chip cookies, I used a mix of Valrhona Caraibe 66% fèves and Valrhona Jivara 40% fèves. If you want a less sweet cookie, feel free to use all dark chocolate instead of a mix of dark and milk. But the milk chocolate complements the nuttiness of the rye flour well!

Why do I need to chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator overnight?

Chilling the cookie dough overnight makes these rye chocolate chip cookies extra flavorful and chewy. In a pinch, you can skip chilling the cookie dough—the cookies will turn out just fine. But they’ll really be special if you take the time to rest the dough!

Additionally, these chocolate chip cookies become chewier after an overnight rest. How? Earlier, I mentioned that rye absorbs 10 times more water and liquid than all-purpose flour. Giving rye flour time to absorb the water from other ingredients like butter and eggs will make the cookies chewier.

Best Recipe Tips

Technique Tips

• To save myself some clean up, I melt the butter in the bowl I’m planning to make the cookie dough in. Specifically: I use a small bowl to mix the dry ingredients. Then, I use the microwave to melt the butter in a medium bowl big enough to mix the dough in, add the sugars, egg, and extract, then the dry ingredients and chocolate. As a result, I only need two bowls for this recipe!
  
  
• When prepping ingredients, I also melt the butter first. That way, it has time to cool while I prep the rest of the ingredients. Doing so ensures your butter isn’t too hot and won’t scramble the egg when you add it to the dough!
  
  
• Be mindful when melting the butter for these cookies! You don’t want the butter to sizzle, crackle, or pop. I like to chop it up into 1-inch cubes then melt it in a small sauce pot over medium-low heat. Be sure to stir the butter constantly as it melts to help prevent it from overheating.

Troubleshooting Tip

• If your dough seems too soft to scoop, don’t panic! It’s likely that the butter was still too hot when you combined it with the rest of the ingredients. Simply pop the bowl of cookie dough in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes to firm the dough up.

Styling Tip

• Want your cookies to look *EXACTLY* like mine, with a signature puddle of melted chocolate skimmed across each surface? Easy! Simply reserve a fève or a ½- to 1-inch piece of chopped chocolate for each cookie. Place on top of each cookie dough ball before baking. The chocolate will melt into the puddles you see on top of each cookie!

Baking Tips

• I like to bake the cookies one pan at a time. I find that doing so makes the best cookies, ensuring that none of them have overly burnt bottoms or raw centers. However, to save time, you can bake two sheet pans at a time. Position a rack in the upper-third position of the oven, and a second one in the lower-third position of the oven. Bake a pan on each rack, swapping their positions half way through the Bake Time.
  
  
• Uh oh! Did the cookies come out puffier than expected? Check out my troubleshooting guide on How To Fix Puffy Cookies (And Other Cookie Baking Fails)!