These are the very best Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies you can make at home; I tested FOUR different chocolates in this recipe so you didn’t have to!
After tweaking some measurements, switching salts, and testing chocolates, I can confidently say that THIS recipe yields perfectly delicious copycat cookies that every home baker can easily make in their own kitchen!
Jacques Torres Famous Cookie Recipe
Jacques Torres Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies speak for themselves though if you need a description, Torres describes them as being “a lot of chocolate with a little cookie dough around it”. These world-famous cookies are big, loaded with pools of melted chocolate, and are best enjoyed warm!
The French artisan chocolatier who began his career at just 15 years old, knew exactly what he was doing when he made these cookies. So much so that they landed the number one spot in the New York Times as the best chocolate chip cookie recipe.
So how do we perfect such an iconic cookie at home? Easy! I’ve done the heavy lifting (or baking) for you with the goal being to test three alternative chocolates to the original to come up with a copycat recipe that replicates the famous cookies in a way that’s easily accessible to the typical at-home baker.
After testing this recipe by making almost a hundred cookies and using four types of chocolate, I landed on the answer to what chocolate fits these cookies best!
Rebecca’s Recipe Review
Taste: Vanilla forward with big pools of chocolate.
Texture: Big, soft, chewy, slightly crisp edges, lots of chocolate chunks.
Ease: 5/10 – They are pretty simple when it comes to the process of making.
Pros: These were as soft and chewy on day 3 as they were on day 1!
Cons: Long chill time!
Would I Make This Again? Yes, but they wouldn’t be my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe just because they have such a long chill time. I’m impatient, what can I say!
Jacques Torres Cookie Ingredients
The base of this Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe is made with a combination of bread flour and cake flour. This flour mixture gives the cookies their chewy texture that mimics his exact cookies.
However, the average home baker likely doesn’t have multiple types of specialty flour on hand. If needed, you can purchase bread flour but then make homemade cake flour using just two ingredients.
If this sounds like a deal breaker, then go ahead and make the cookies with all-purpose flour but keep in mind the texture and taste won’t replicate Jacques Torres Cookies. Though I’m sure that they will still be delicious!
Continuing with the ingredients is a combination of granulated sugar and light brown sugar. This lays the foundation for a perfectly balanced, sweet-tasting cookie while also setting the stage for them to have a moist, tender texture.
The next ingredient is salt, which was really my only complaint when it comes to Jacques Torres’s original recipe. He recommends making the cookie dough with coarse salt, however, to me, that just doesn’t seem practical. Therefore, I swapped coarse salt for regular salt.
Rounding off the ingredients is baking powder, baking soda, unsalted butter, large eggs, vanilla extract, flaky sea salt, and bittersweet chocolate. And with the mention of chocolate, I tested this recipe with four different types of chocolate to find the very best option!
The Ultimate Chocolate Test
The ultimate chocolate test: almost 100 cookies and four types of chocolate used. The short answer is that if you’re looking for a replica of Jacques Torres Cookies, the obvious choice would be ordering his chocolates – but this will run you about $33 and take a week to be delivered…
So, if you’re looking for an option that’s a close match, easily accessible, and more affordable, I found the winner to be a 60% or 70% Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Baking Bar. Read on to find out how all four types of chocolate did in testing, or watch my video highlights on Instagram, where I taste-test and discuss each one!
Jacques Torres Dark Chocolate Discs – These are the most expensive option and need to be ordered from the Jacques Torres website or Amazon. Taste-wise, if you want to achieve the closest flavor replica to the original cookie, you’ll want to choose these.
In terms of texture and appearance, these don’t have that ‘snap’ when you break it like the classic Jacques Torres cookies do, however, the chocolate discs do layer and pool up in the cookies just as they do in the his.
In my opinion, the Jacques Torres Dark Chocolate Discs could be worth the splurge if you’re making these cookies for a special occasion.
Ghirardelli Chocolate Melting Wafers – These wafers are the cheapest option and can be found in most standard grocery stores. However, for me, they performed the worst.
This is because Ghirardelli wafers are made primarily with sugar and vegetable oil with cocoa actually being one of the last ingredients listed. Rightfully so since their main purpose is for smooth dipping.
When used in this Jacques Torres cookie recipe the cookies turned out more pale in color and they spread the most in testing. Though they resemble the Jacques Torres chocolate discs the most in appearance, they didn’t melt as much in the cookies therefore there wasn’t much distribution and minimal pooling.
Due to the minimal chocolate pooling and ingredients that give these wafers minimal chocolate flavoring as opposed to true chocolate; these just don’t fit the bill when replicating Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Callebaut Dark Chocolate Callets – This is Belgium’s premier chocolate that I ordered from Amazon and it can seem like an expensive option, but you get a HUGE bag which you’ll be able to make many batches of cookies with.
This chocolate has a 54.5% cocoa content, so it does come just under the 60% that Jacques Torres recommends using for his chocolate chip cookies.
That said, this chocolate has a similar shape to classic chocolate chips though they are designed to melt and puddle up when baked. Whereas classic chocolate chips are made with additives to help them maintain their chip shape.
When testing this recipe, I found these melted nicely on the bottom while the chips on top seemed to hold their shape more, though they did give nice chocolate layers inside the cookies. These cookies were the most tender of all the cookies tested and had a sweeter taste than the original Jacques Torres Cookies.
Overall, Callebaut Dark Chocolate Callets are a solid option, however, they wouldn’t be my first choice.
Ghirardelli 60 or 70% Dark Chocolate – This is the easiest option to get your hands on and is the second least expensive. For me, this one hit home! This chopped baking chocolate melted and puddled up nicely, just like the Torres discs do, and gives the cookies the best overall flavor.
I used a mixture of 60% and 70% chocolate and found the taste to be spot on. However, you could use one or the other and still come out with really great tasting cookies.
In testing, these cookies turned out to be the thickest out of all of them since the chopped chocolate does give the cookie more structure.
For me, this is the winning choice! The price point is great, they’re easily accessible since they can be found at almost every grocery store in the baking aisle, and they give these Jacques Torres cookies scrumptious flavor!
How To Make Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies At Home
A full recipe card with step-by-step photos and ingredient quantities for this famous cookie recipe can be found at the end of the post. Leave a comment if you have any questions about this recipe!
- Sift cake flour, bread flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a large bowl. Set this aside.
- Cream the unsalted butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until pale and light.
- Mix in the large eggs one at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.
- Mix in half of the dry ingredients and then add the remaining half, mixing again until just combined.
- Chop the bittersweet chocolate Ghirardelli Bars into squares.
- Fold the chopped chocolate into the cookie dough.
- Portion out the Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookie dough onto a baking sheet that’s lined with parchment paper.
- Cover the pan of portioned-out cookie dough with plastic wrap and then slide the pan into the fridge to chill.
- Preheat the oven and line two large baking pans with parchment paper.
- Chill the cookie sheet in the freezer before placing the portioned-out cookie dough balls onto it.
- Bake the chocolate chip cookies until they become golden brown yet are still soft. Rotate the baking sheet halfway through the baking time.
- Sprinkle each cookie with flaky sea salt as soon as a batch comes out of the oven.
- Transfer the baking sheet of cookies onto a wire rack to cool. Afterward, transfer the cookies off of the pan and onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Optional Signature Chocolate Bottoms: Melt dark chocolate melting wafers until entirely melted and smooth. Then carefully dip the bottoms of the baked and cooled cookies into melted chocolate. After dipping, transfer them to parchment paper to set.
To Dip Or Not To Dip?
Once the cookies are baked, you have the option of dipping the bottoms of them in melted chocolate. The good news is that you can’t go wrong either way since these Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies are delicious whether their dipped or not!
In fact, you can order either option on the Jacques Torres website therefore I left this is an optional step for my readers to decide for themselves. When deciding to dip or not to dip, the biggest question to ask yourself is “How much chocolate do I want in my cookie?” If the answer is A LOT, then dip those bottoms!
I do find that chocolate dipped bottoms dress the cookies up a bit more, showing that you’ve gone the extra mile. So, if you’re making a batch for a special occasion or get-together then I’d also say dip those bottoms!
Flour Measurement – The original Jacques Torres recipe calls for 1 2/3 cups of bread flour yet also says 8.5 ounces. When we measured, it actually took 1 3/4 cups to reach 8.5 ounces, which was 242 grams. Though either measurement would yield delicious cookies, I’d recommend measuring them in grams to yield a chewy texture that’s similar to the originals.
Granulated Sugar Measurement – Similarly to the flour measurement, we also found the sugar measurement to be a bit off as well. The original recipe calls for 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons but also said 8 ounces. On my scale, 1 cup turned out to be 8 ounces therefore we omitted the additional 2 tablespoons. After testing, we found it was fine to keep the additional tablespoons of sugar, so we kept it in the recipe.
Salt – Coarse salt tends to be my biggest complaint with the original recipe since it just doesn’t seem practical. Therefore, we switched the coarse salt our for fine salt since it incorporated more evenly throughout the cookie dough.
Chilling: Scooped vs Combined – We portioned the dough out before chilling as opposed to chilling the dough as a whole batch in a bowl. This ensures the cookie dough balls are going on the pan at a more consistent temperature to give them all an even bake across the batch. The dough also would be really difficult to scoop and portion out after 72 hours of chilling!
Chill Time – After testing chocolate chip cookies for weeks I’m still not full sold on the 72-hour chill time! To me, the time investment for chilling just doesn’t feel worth it. I don’t feel as though you gain enough in terms of flavor and texture to give up that wait time. Therefore, if you can chill the dough for at least 24 hours I’d say that’s good enough but if you want to commit to 72 hours then go for it!
How To Store Jacques Torres Cookies
Store Homemade Jacques Torres Cookies in a tightly sealed container or Ziploc bag with the excess air squeezed out of it. Then keep them at room temperature to enjoy for up to 5 days.
When testing this recipe, I found that these cookies were as tender on day 3 as they were when they were freshly baked and even more flavorful! So, you truly can enjoy these cookies for days after since they’re just as good as day 1!
How To Freeze
For the best flavor and texture, it’d be best to freeze the balls of cookie dough instead of freezing baked cookies. To do so, portion out the cookie dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and then transfer the pan into the freezer for an hour to flash-freeze the dough.
Afterward, transfer the balls of frozen dough into a freezer Ziploc bag and squeeze out any excess air. Then store the bag of cookie dough in the freezer for up to 3 months.
More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies – Big, thick, and chewy – the ultimate chocolate chip cookie!
- The Best Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies – Made with pantry staple ingredients!
- Cookie Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies – Speculoos Cookie Butter makes for a tasty twist on the classic cookie!
- Mama Kelce’s Chocolate Chip Cookies – Find out what NFL’s favorite cookie tastes like!
- Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies – Infused with cinnamon spice and brown butter flavor!
Did You Make This Recipe?
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Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour 240g, 8.5 oz., I use King Arthur
- 1¾ cups bread flour 242g, 8.5 oz., see notes, I use King Arthur
- 1⅛ teaspoons salt see notes
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1¼ teaspoons baking soda
- 1¼ cups unsalted butter 284g, softened, I use Kerrygold, see notes
- 1¼ cups light brown sugar 282g, 10oz., packed
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 225g, 8 oz., see notes
- 2 large eggs I use Vital Farms
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate g, I used 5 Ghirardelli Chocolate baking bars, a mix of 60 and 70%.
- Flaky sea salt like Maldon
Instructions
- Sift 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour, 1¾ cups bread flour, 1⅛ teaspoons salt, 1½ teaspoons baking powder, and 1¼ teaspoons baking soda into a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the 1¼ cups unsalted butter, 1¼ cups light brown sugar, and 1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar on speed 4 until very pale and light, about 5 minutes. I scraped down the bowl and the paddle halfway through, even though it does not say to do so in the original recipe.
- Add 2 large eggs, one at a time, mixing for 30 seconds on speed 2 after each addition. Stir in the 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract.
- Add about half of the dry ingredients and mix on low, then add the other half while it mixes and mix for another 5 to 10 seconds until just combined.
- Chop the 1¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate Ghirardelli Bars into squares (each of the molded chocolate squares becomes 4 squares).
- Add the squares and any smaller pieces to the bowl and fold it into the dough without breaking it (as much as possible).
- Portion the dough into 3½-ounce mounds of dough and place them close together on a large parchment-lined baking pan. Flatten out any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Top with a few chunks of extra chocolate for appearances and pools of chocolate on top of the baked cookie if any are looking sparse.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 24 to 72 hours. (the longer, the better). The dough can be used all at once or in batches.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line two large baking pans with parchment paper. Chill one for 2 minutes in the freezer before adding cookies. Set the other aside for the second batch, chilling it for a few minutes before you put the cookies on to bake. Only bake one baking pan worth of cookies at a time for best results.
- Bake no more than six cookies per 12×17-inch baking pan, leaving 3 inches between cookies, until golden brown but still soft, about 18 to 20 minutes for large cookies or 10 to 12 minutes for smaller cookies. Rotate halfway through.
- Sprinkle lightly with Flaky sea salt right after they come out of the oven.
- Transfer the baking pan to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies from the pan to another wire rack to cool further. Place the used baking sheet in the freezer to chill for a few minutes before adding the next batch to it. They are best eaten warm.
- Optional: For the signature chocolate bottom, melt dark chocolate melting wafers in a microwave-safe bowl at 30-second intervals, stirring between each one, until entirely melted. Gently dip the bottoms of the cooked and firm cookies in the chocolate and place them on parchment paper to set.
Video
Notes
- The original recipe calls for 1 2/3 cup bread flour but also says 8.5 ounces. When we measured, it took 1 3/4 cups of bread flour to get 8.5 ounces, which was 242g. After testing, either measurement would have yielded delicious cookies, but the lower measurement might have been closer to the chewy texture of the originals.
- The original recipe calls for 1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar but also says 8 ounces. 1 cup was 8 ounces on my scale, so we omitted the additional 2 tablespoons. After testing, the additional 2 tablespoons would have been fine to add so we kept it in the recipe.
- My biggest complaint with this recipe is the coarse salt. It just doesn’t seem practical. Jacques calls for 1 1/2 teaspoons of coarse salt, but we switched this out for 1 1/8 teaspoons salt because it incorporated more evenly throughout the dough.
- The recipe yields 19 to 20 cookies.
- We chose to scoop and then chill the dough in balls to make it easier, the dough would be VERY hard and difficult to scoop after 72 hours of chilling.
- Turn any chocolate that is poking up from the dough horizontally so that they melt evenly into the cookie.
- The Jacques Torres discs did create the best thin ripples of the test chocolates, but the Ghirardelli was similar in flavor and much cheaper. But by all means, feel free to splurge if you want!
- I think using a grass-fed, Irish, or European salted butter would be fun in stead of unsalted in this recipe and reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon.
Nutrition
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Comments & Reviews
Rebecca Hubbell says
I love the big chunks of chocolate that puddle in these cookies! Microwave cooled cookies for 15 seconds and they’re just perfect!