These bourbon vanilla chocolate chip cookies are almost cake-like in texture, but in the best possible way. Learn how to bake these soft, chewy treats to brighten your day or to stash away for a rainy day.

plate of bourbon vanilla chocolate chip cookies

SOFT AND CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (WITH BOURBON AND VANILLA)

Anyone who knows me well, knows I’m a dessert fiend. I don’t know who I inherited my sweet tooth from, but if there’s a homemade treat lurking nearby, it’s not safe. My husband is aware of the problem. His portion of dessert has disappeared on more than one occasion all because he took too long to get to it. You snooze, you lose, right? Needless to say, cookies don’t last long around me either, especially when they’re soft and chewy. How long do they last around you?

With that being said, I don’t bake cookies all that often because I know I’ll eat them. Every so often I’ll treat myself with a cayenne chocolate chip cookie at the local bakery, but sometimes it’s 7 pm when the sugar craving kicks in. Usually, I don’t do anything about it, but when my husband is taken over by the sugar monster, he sometimes bakes a batch of cookies. In the last year, there’s one recipe he’s been working into something that’s become entirely his own.

MAKING THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES: A VIDEO

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THE JOYS OF EXPERIMENTATION

holding a tray of bourbon vanilla chocolate chip cookies

To get to this recipe, he subbed ingredients. Normally I don’t recommend this in baking. I used to do it when I was a teenager, subbing one ingredient for another and ending up with something fit for the trashcan.

For the most part, baking is a science, it’s a form of kitchen chemistry. Butter has water, so it can’t be replaced outright with pure fat without the proper calculations. But my husband doesn’t care about these things because he has a chef’s heart, and when you’re cooking, the most important rules are to taste and to keep your knives sharp. By some miracle, his cookie experimentations were a success.

WHY THESE COOKIES?

When you run a Google search for “chocolate chip cookie recipe”, there are 87.7 million results. People love their chocolate chip cookies! Can you blame them? There’s nothing quite like a warm chocolate chip cookie and a cold glass of milk. Well, I mean, there’s a warm ginger molasses cookie and a cold glass of milk (or an iced chai latte), but that’s a completely different feeling and experience. A chewy chocolate chip cookie is the food equivalent of a comforting hug, which is why it’s easy to go overboard.

THESE ARE BOURBON VANILLA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

These cookies are seriously moist–wait, you’re not one of those people that gets hot and bothered by the word moist, are you? Well, it’s true, they’ll keep for a couple of days as a result. They also have a surprising cake-like consistency that’s quite pleasant. Oh, and they’re made with bourbon. They’re not boozy cookies or anything, and if you tell a baker you made bourbon vanilla cookies, they’ll probably be impressed that you know your vanillas. You know, because there’s Tahitian vanilla, Mexican vanilla, Madagascar vanilla, Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, etc. Beanilla will tell you all about the funky vanilla varieties out there. By the way, I baked these with vanilla extract that I made from scratch.

BRIGHTEN SOMEONE’S DAY WITH SURPRISE COOKIES

I want you to set a challenge for yourself. Yes, bake these for yourself, but make a double batch and surprise someone with a tin of homemade cookies. Bring them into work and delight your colleagues; get to know someone in your building or in your neighbourhood; ring your friend’s doorbell and dash away, leaving the cookies on their doorstep. It’s a small gesture that costs no more than the going rate for a brick of butter, but it’ll be worth every penny. It’s one way to elevate yourself up to darling status, and fast.

FREEZE THESE BOURBON VANILLA BABIES

Maybe you’re like me and you don’t want the temptation of a dozen cookies to ruin your figure. Well, guess what, you don’t need to bake them all at once! Have you ever froze cookie dough before? It’s an old bakery trick. Bakeries will mix up crazy big batches of cookie dough, drop them on industrial-sized cookie sheets, and freeze them on racks. Once frozen, the cookies (which are more like hockey pucks at this stage), are divided and transferred to plastic bags and labelled. When you have a hankering for cookies, you put them on a parchment-lined tray and bake like you normally would. If this is news to you, you’re welcome.

bourbon vanilla chocolate chip cookie dough

WAYS YOU CAN MAKE THIS RECIPE YOUR OWN

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love teaching my readers how to take ownership in the kitchen. I want you to learn, play and have fun. I know I just said that baking is a science, but you can alter this recipe for bourbon vanilla chocolate chip cookies without jeopardizing the structural integrity. Here are some ideas of what you can do:

Add pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds), sunflower seeds, and your favourite dried fruit.
For something more festive, try crushed candy canes and white chocolate chunks.
Sneak in mini eggs when you can get your hands on them.
Switch out the vanilla for almond extract and include dried cherries.
Trade the chocolate chips for white chocolate chunks, and chopped macadamia nuts.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE COOKIE?

My favourite cookie in the whole wide world is oatmeal raisin. My husband’s, chocolate chip. That doesn’t stop me from stealing his cookies, but it stops him from stealing mine! What’s your favourite cookie? Did any of the above combinations inspire you to create your own? Let me know in the comments below!

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Cookie sheets
Parchment paper