Chocolate Chip Cookies Without Brown Sugar (Small Batch!)

Have you ever wondered how to make Chocolate Chip Cookies without brown sugar? Well, now you can. My small-batch cookie recipe yields 8 gorgeously golden, perfectly sweet & salty chocolate chip cookies using just granulated sugar. Make these thick, chewy and soft on the inside cookies with just 30 minutes of active time. You’ll be so glad you did!

⭐ Why You’ll Love This Recipe 

Here’s the story: some time ago, Calvin and I were craving some chocolate chip cookies like nobody’s business, so I went to the kitchen to whip up a batch. I got to the pantry and... I was out of brown sugar!

While convincing me to bake up a batch of something tasty takes almost no effort — sometimes getting me to leave our cozy sanctuary to go to the store for a single ingredient is a much more difficult proposition. Instead, I decided I’d figure out a way to make a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies without brown sugar. 

Since I was working completely off the cuff, I opted to make a smaller batch than I normally would because I wasn’t sure how they’d turn out. As it happened, these thick, soft texture, chocolate loaded, chewy-on-the-inside, golden beauties turned out perfectly! They’ve since become a favorite of ours and remind us of the thick levain chocolate chip cookies we know and love!

Now, as someone who bakes a LOT but lives in a 2-person household, it’s nice to have recipes that are more suited to our situation. Remember my 6-inch celebration cake? This small-batch chocolate chip cookie recipe is just that. 

I can whip up the dough in under 10 minutes (there’s no mixer involved!) and have a completely reasonable batch of 8 soft cookies ready for munching. Go ahead and bookmark this page. I promise you’ll want to come back next time a cookie craving strikes!

🍴Ingredients

You don’t need much to make a small batch of completely crave-able chocolate chip cookies, even if you don’t have brown sugar on hand. Here’s the basic ingredients you’ll want to grab:

• All-Purpose Flour - I haven’t tried swapping in a gluten-free cup-for-cup flour substitute here, but something tells me it’d work. If you try it out, let me know how it turns out in the comments below!
• Kosher Salt & Flaky Sea Salt - I use kosher salt in the cookie dough, then use some fancier flaky sea salt to finish them. I’m partial to the gorgeous pyramid shape of Maldon, but any finishing salt will do just fine.
• Baking Soda - Unfortunately, you can’t swap in baking powder here. 
• Unsalted Butter - You probably already know what I’m going to say, but it bears repeating: grass-fed, organic, and/or cultured butter will yield the best flavor.
• Granulated Sugar - All you need is plain white sugar to make these fantastic chocolate chip cookies. No brown sugar is required!
• Egg - Just one large egg will do the trick here. Let it come to room temp before mixing into the dough to prevent the overproduction of gluten.
• Vanilla Extract - I know a tablespoon is a lot for such a small-batch cookie recipe, but it helps to replace the rich, caramelly, nutty flavor we’d get from brown sugar. Feel free to swap in vanilla paste or powder if you prefer.
• Chocolate Chips - For a classic cookie, I suggest semi-sweet chocolate chips. However, you’re in charge here! Try milk chocolate or white chocolate chips, chocolate feves, or chopped chocolate bars into small chunks instead.

⚒️ Equipment

No mixer? No problem! This easy, small batch cookie recipe comes together with just the basics. Here are the tools I use:

• Cookie Sheet. You only need one for this small-batch cookie recipe! 
• Mixing Bowl & Rubber Spatula - essentials for making a batch of cookies
• Large Cookie Scoop. While this is technically an optional piece of equipment, I love using my large cookie scoop! It yields perfectly sized cookies every time, which makes each batch bake more uniformly and look more professional. It also comes in handy for filling muffin or cupcake liners with wet batter. 
• Parchment Paper. A roll of parchment paper is key in any home baker’s kitchen. It’ll ensure your cookies and cakes release from their pans with nary a crumb left behind!

📖 Step by Step Instructions

You won’t believe how easy it is to make a delicious chocolate chip cookie with no brown sugar. Here’s how it’s done:

Step 1: Dry Ingredients. Whisk together the all-purpose flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl.

Step 2: Wet Ingredients. Mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients and stir until everything is combined. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips. 

Step 3: Rest Dough. Using a large cookie scoop, scoop dough and place on a lined plate or small baking tray. Place your dough in the fridge overnight, or at a bare minimum a chill time of thirty minutes - this helps add to the texture, flavor and spreading of the cookie when they are ready to bake.

Step 4: Bake. Prepare your baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the cookies about 2-inches apart on your baking sheets. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and one sheet at a time, bake your cookies until the edges are golden and the centers are soft about 10-12 minutes.

Step 5: Sprinkle, Cool & Enjoy. Sprinkle a little bit of flakey sea salt on top of the cookies, and cool on a wire rack and enjoy the lovely chewy texture!

⏲️ Substitutions & Variations

These no brown sugar chocolate chip cookies are rife with opportunities to customize! Here are a few of my favorite variations:

• Add nuts or other mix-ins. Chocolate chips and pecans are a classic combo, but feel free to have some fun here! Walnuts, pistachios, macadamias, other flavors of baking chips, butterscotch chips, chopped chocolate, or chopped candies are all perfectly acceptable substitutes or add-ins.
• Dairy-free. Swap in your favorite plant-based butter instead.
• Pro Tip - Brown the butter. Deepen the flavor of these small batch cookies by taking a little extra time to make beurre noisette. Try this recipe for Double Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with brown butter if you're intruiged!
• Use almond extract. Almond-flavored foods are among my favorites, so I’ll often swap out vanilla for almond extract in recipes. You can also feel free to do a 50/50 mix!
• Turn them into ice cream sandwiches like my Ginger Molasses Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches recipe - a summer's day with an ice cream sammie? Always a good thing.

👩🏻‍🍳 Expert Tips

• Try not to skip the chilling step. Since we are only using white sugar in this recipe, the cookies are more prone to spreading. Chilling the dough for a minimum of 30 minutes (and preferably overnight) will reduce the amount of spread, meaning the centers of the cookies stay moist.
• Freeze the dough for on-demand chocolate chip cookies. Once you’ve chilled the dough balls, feel free to freeze them for up to 3 months. Whenever a cookie craving strikes, pull out as many as you need. You can even bake just one at a time with a toaster oven!
• Double the recipe as needed. These small-batch chocolate chip cookies don’t have to be small-batch if you don’t want them to! 

📏 Tips for accurate measuring

When it comes to the science of baking, it is imperative that you’re measuring your ingredients as precisely and accurately as possible. This is why I highly recommend that you invest in a kitchen scale! Dry ingredients in particular can vary widely in terms of weight vs. volume depending on how you measure them. Using a scale will also save you time; cut back on cleanup; and will allow for more consistent baking success - a total win!

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