Air Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies

April 10, 2019

Air Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the classic Toll House-style chocolate chip cookie, baked a few at a time in an air fryer instead of the oven. The dough itself is nothing new: creamed butter, brown and white sugar, an egg plus an extra yolk for richness, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, and a generous amount of chocolate chips. What changes is the heat. An air fryer basket runs hotter and drier at close range than an oven, so the cookies bake cooler and much faster than a standard 350°F bake.

The payoff is a cookie with a crisp, golden shell and a center that’s still soft and slightly molten when it comes out of the basket. Pulling the cookies while the middle looks a touch underdone, then letting them rest in the basket for a few minutes, is what sets that texture — the residual heat finishes the center while the shell firms up.

It’s a small-batch method: three or four cookies at a time, rolled into balls and spaced apart so they have room to spread. That makes it useful when you want warm cookies without preheating a full oven or baking a whole tray at once. The dough also works from frozen, so a bag of pre-portioned balls in the freezer turns into fresh cookies in well under ten minutes.

Ingredients

Makes 22 cookies

170 g unsalted butter, softened
130 g brown sugar, packed
85 g granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1½ tsp vanilla extract
240 g plain flour
¾ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt (if using salted butter, reduce to a pinch)
225 g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Beat the softened butter with the brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth and light, about 2 minutes. Add the whole egg, the extra yolk, and the vanilla extract, and beat until just combined.

Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture, then add the flour and mix until a dough just comes together. Don’t overwork it. Fold in the chocolate chips by hand.

Line the air fryer basket with perforated air-fryer parchment, or use plain parchment weighted down by the dough so it can’t lift into the fan or element. Roll the dough into balls of about 2 tablespoons each and place 3 to 4 in the basket at a time, spaced about 1 in (2.5 cm) apart to leave room for spreading.

Air fry at 320°F (160°C) for 7 to 8 minutes, checking from the 6-minute mark. The edges should be set and just turning golden, while the centers still look slightly underdone and molten — this is what you want, so don’t bake past it.

Let the cookies rest in the basket for about 5 minutes. The residual heat finishes the molten center while the shell crisps up. Transfer to a wire rack and repeat with the remaining dough in batches of 3 to 4.

Notes

For gooier, doughier cookies, pull them about a minute early. For crisper edges, give them an extra minute. To reduce spread, chill the dough for 30 minutes first, then bake at a lower 300°F (150°C) for 9 to 11 minutes.

Frozen dough balls work straight from the freezer: bake at the same 320°F (160°C) but add 1 to 2 minutes, or drop to 270°F (132°C) for 11 to 13 minutes if baking straight from a hard chill.

Every air fryer runs a little differently, so it’s worth baking one test cookie first to dial in the timing — basket-style fryers can bake up to 40% faster than an oven.

Salted butter works fine in place of unsalted; just cut the added salt down to a pinch.

For a faster, slightly denser and chewier crumb, melt the butter instead of creaming it: whisk it with the sugars, then add the egg, yolk, and vanilla, followed by the dry ingredients and chocolate chips.

Store cooled cookies in an airtight container for 3 to 5 days.