When you’re searching for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, you’ll find countless recipes that contain brown sugar. But what if you didn’t have brown sugar in the pantry? Fear not! It’s still possible to make soft, buttery chocolate chip cookies that will be devoured in no time.

Chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk

Ingredients

All-purpose flour – You may substitute this with other types of flours. However, the texture can vary depending on the protein or gluten content of the flour. Bread flour has more gluten in it and will make the cookies chewier.
White sugar – Here, we’ll only be using white sugar. Most chocolate chip cookies recipes use a combination of both white sugar and brown sugar. The addition of brown sugar makes cookies chewier and have more of a caramel flavour.
Salt – Salt brings out the flavours of the cookie.
Butter – I like to use unsalted butter and control the amount of salt I add to recipes. However, you can use salted butter too. If using salted butter, I’d recommend not adding the salt in this recipe. Butter helps the cookie spread as it melts in the oven. It also gives the cookies a rich flavour.
Semisweet Chocolate Chips/ Chunks – Feel free to use whatever type of chocolate chips or chunks you like. Semi-sweet chocolate chips are usually my go-to, as they generally seem the most popular with most people.
Egg – The proteins in eggs help to bind the cookie ingredients together as you mix the egg into the cookie dough. As the cookies bake in the oven, the proteins from the eggs participate in browning reactions that contribute to the golden brown colour of cookies.
Pure vanilla extract – I like to use pure vanilla extract in my recipes, because that’s what I’m used to. Artificial vanilla extract is a bit stronger in vanilla flavour than pure vanilla extract, so you can actually use less of it. It’s also easier on the wallet, which can be a plus.
Baking soda – This helps the cookies rise by generating bubbles of carbon dioxide. Acidity is what activates the baking soda, which comes from the butter, egg, vanilla extract and probably the chocolate as well.

Equipment

Hand mixer or standmixer – In this recipe, I used a hand mixer, but you can definitely use a stand mixer as well.
Spatula – A spatula is useful for scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl.
Cooling rack – A cooling rack is useful for cooling down cookies very quickly. If you don’t have a cooling rack, that is okay too. The downside of not using a cooling rack is that the cookies will accumulate some moisture underneath them, and you’ll end up with slightly more moist cookies.
Baking tray – A large baking tray that can hold a lot of cookies is ideal.

How to make Chocolate Chip Cookies Without Brown Sugar

You may preheat the oven to 350 ºF or 177 ºC now or a little closer to when you put the cookies in the oven if you want to save on your gas bill like me. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt) together first to evenly disperse them in our cookie dough.

Bring the butter to room temperature. Or you can cheat a little like me. Microwave the cold butter until softened to touch. Check the butter after every 10 seconds of heating it in the microwave. If the butter is a little melted, that’s ok.

Cream the butter until light and smooth.

Then, add sugar and beat at medium low speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides as needed. This step is important since it helps to make your cookies soft. Here, you’re essentially whipping air into the butter-sugar mixture to create a network of butter, sugar crystals and air pockets. When you bake the cookies in the oven, the air bubbles expand from the heat, which contributes to leavening. Then, you get soft cookies.

Mix in the egg and pure vanilla extract until combined. The egg will help hold all the ingredients together. Add the pure vanilla extract as well along with the other wet ingredients at this stage since it will incorporate more easily this way.

Egg and vanilla extract added to creamed butter

Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients on low speed.

Stir in the chocolate chips/ chunks with a spatula. We want to gently incorporate the chocolate chips or chunks into the cookie dough by hand. Using a mixer to do this step could break up the chocolate pieces too much.

Roll the dough into 1 inch diameter balls. Place balls about 2 inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Since the cookies will spread as they bake, we want to give them enough space. If the tops of the dough balls seem bare, push some chocolate chips into the surface to make them look more visually appealing. This is my cheat!

Chocolate chip cookie dough balls on a baking tray

Bake for 12 – 13 minutes in the middle rack position or until the edges are golden brown. The baking time may vary depending on how strong your oven is.

Allow cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. As the cookies cool down, they become solidified. The top surface of the cookies tends to develop some visually appealing cracks during this process. By putting the cookies on the cooling rack, this helps the heat escape from the bottom of the cookies, so moisture doesn’t build up on the bottom of the cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies on a cooling rack

Bake the rest of the cookies.