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Tanya Burr Cookie Recipe
Tanya Burr Cookie Recipe This Tanya Burr cookie recipe is a replica of the milk and white chocolate cookies that filled both her baking book and YouTube channel for several years. The dough is rather easy: it consists of softened butter, creamed with caster sugar and one egg, and self-raising flour instead of plain flour and baking powder. This swap is the entire magic of texture. Self-rising flour gives a lighter, puffier cookie, where the middle stays soft while the edges set crisp. Instead of mini chips, you break bars of milk and white chocolate into big random pieces so that every cookie is flecked with melted pools when you bite in. The oven is hot at 200°C. Bake the cookies for a maximum of 10 minutes. When opening the door, they will seem pale and soft in the middle. Do not put them back in. As they cool, the tray solidifies them. Do not attempt to pick one up for at least 20 minutes. The batch yields 10 to 12 large cookies, depending on how deeply you scoop.
Prep
15 mins
Cook
12 mins
Servings
Makes 10 to 12 large cookies
Difficulty
Easy
Tanya Burr Cookie Recipe
The cookies that people continue to Google for years after Tanya Burr shared the recipe from her book, Tanya Bakes, are thick, flat slabs of pale chocolate with spots and splatters of milk and white chocolate in large irregular flakes. They are thick, flat slabs of pale chocolate with spots and splatters of milk and white chocolate in large irregular flakes. After cooling, they were soft and practically doughy in the middle. Crisp at the edges. They don't look done when you remove them from the oven. That is the recipe.
What is odd is the self-raising flour. However, it is common in cookie recipes to use all-purpose flour and measure out a specific amount of baking powder or bicarbonate of soda. Here, the flour is already pre-leavened. They rise a little and remain tender rather than turning cakey. If you're using plain flour, just mix 2 teaspoons of baking powder with that amount (325g here) and a sprinkle of salt.
Use a bar of chocolate torn by hand, not a bag of standard chips. With bars, thick shards and fat discs melt into pockets. In the UK, bakers often reach for Galaxy and Milkybar because they melt down to a creamier consistency, but you can use any quality milk & white chocolate.
Butter must be soft. Using cold butter results in poor creaming, and then when flour is added, the dough cracks. If the dough is crumbly after mixing, add a tablespoon of milk and mix it with your hands. If it's tacky, whisk in a tablespoon of flour.
They will just spread into a puddle of dough if placed too close together. These reached about 10 cm across. If your oven is a little uneven, bake one tray at a time. If your oven runs hot, pull these at 11 minutes; if it runs cool, 12. Cool on the tray. If you remove them from the oven too early, the soft centers tend to collapse.
Variations
- Cornflake chocolate chip version: Use 300g of flour, add in a pinch of sea salt, and mix these additions into the bowl. 80g crushed cornflakes +120g milk chocolate chips Same butter, sugar, and egg. Same bake time. A relaxing crunch through a soft cookie from the cornflakes.
- Triple chocolate: replace 75g of the flour with cocoa powder and add 100g each of milk, white and dark chocolate chunks.
- Smaller cookies: shape the dough into 16 balls and bake for about 9 to 10 minutes.
How to Make Tanya Burr Cookie Recipe (Step-by-Step)
Soft butter is not optional
But Tanya Burr's technique starts with creaming butter and sugar until very pale. This works only when the butter is truly room-temperature soft. Butter that is still firmer in the middle will not trap air and leads to greasy dough that splits after flour has gone in. If you forgot to take it out of the fridge, slice butter and leave it at room temperature for 30 mins or microwave on low power for 10 - 15 seconds until soft but not melted. Butter that has been melted results in flat, greasy cookies lacking form.
Break the chocolate by hand
Pre-chopped chips fuse into an unbroken smear. With hand-broken bar chocolate, you can get great big slabs and fragile shards of the same cookie so that in some bites it's mostly dough while others are almost all molten chocolate. Effectively use a bowl to break bars with hands instead of chopping on your cutting board. You want variety in size. Like you use your hands to fold the chunks in at the end; just do not include them in a mixer. Big pools of it, which a paddle or whisk then breaks into dust.
Trust the pale centre in the oven
When you pull the tray out, these cookies are meant to look a little bit underbaked. The center should still be moist and the top barely golden. 2 more minutes in the oven now, and it goes from oozy to dry by tomorrow. This happens at the hot tray as they cool. If in doubt, take one of the cookies out at 10 minutes and break it open. The edges should be set while the middle is still soft. That is the target.
Cool them longer than you think
On the tray, it is no stretch to spend twenty at maximum. Hot cookie centers are structurally compromised, and the chocolate inside is still molten. If you lift them too soon, they overbake, or the base will remain on the paper. Heat leaving, bottoms firm first and then centers set. The edges should be crisp, with a soft center when you remove the cookie after 20 minutes. That stark difference is what this recipe is all about.
5 from 1 vote
Tanya Burr Cookie Recipe
This Tanya Burr cookie recipe is a replica of the milk and white chocolate cookies that filled both her baking book and YouTube channel for several years. The dough is rather easy: it consists of softened butter, creamed with caster sugar and one egg, and self-raising flour instead of plain flour and baking powder. This swap is the entire magic of texture. Self-rising flour gives a lighter, puffier cookie, where the middle stays soft while the edges set crisp. Instead of mini chips, you break bars of milk and white chocolate into big random pieces so that every cookie is flecked with melted pools when you bite in. The oven is hot at 200°C. Bake the cookies for a maximum of 10 minutes. When opening the door, they will seem pale and soft in the middle. Do not put them back in. As they cool, the tray solidifies them. Do not attempt to pick one up for at least 20 minutes. The batch yields 10 to 12 large cookies, depending on how deeply you scoop.
Equipment
- Large mixing bowl
- Electric whisk or wooden spoon
- Baking trays lined with baking parchment
- Wire cooling rack
- Kitchen scales
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Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan/400°F/Gas 6). To begin, line one or two baking trays with parchment paper.
- Cream the softened butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy (approximately 2 minutes in an electric whisk or 3 to 4 minutes by hand). The blend must look a world lighter than if you had begun with it.
- Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. The batter may seem a little curdled for a second. Then keep mixing, and it will all come together.
- Incorporate the self-raising flour (in 2 or 3 additions) with a spatula while mixing on low speed until stiff dough is formed, and if it seems dry and crumbly, add 1 tablespoon of milk more to the dough and press with your hands. You should be able to shape it into one ball without the dough sticking heavily to your fingers.
- Chop the chocolate into irregular chunks, from tiny shards to 2 cm-sized pieces. Fold through by hand to divide the chocolate evenly throughout (without overworking).
- Shape into 10 to 12 even balls and place them at least 8 cm apart on trays. Do not flatten them much. A ball that drags just a little excessively provides all the thicker core.
- Place in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until edges are golden but centers look pale and soft. FYI, DO NOT bake them longer thinking they will firm up in the oven. They will overbake and lose the oozy center.
- Leave for at least 20 minutes on the tray until the bottoms feel set and the braces center has cooled down enough to lift without bending. If desired, transfer to a wire rack or enjoy them warm from the tray.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Tanya Burr's cookie recipe use self-raising flour?
Self-raising flour is mixed with baking powder and a pinch of salt. It contributes a tiny bit of lift so the cookies stay soft and bakery-style without any independent leavening. If you mix 325 g of plain flour with 2 tsp of baking powder, then it will substitute for self-raising.
How long do Tanya Burr style cookies keep?
Best eaten on the same day they are made. In room temperature and in an airtight container, they will remain soft for 2 to 3 days! The centers harden a little bit more each day. A day-old hard cookie? Microwave it for 10 seconds to soften.
Notes
One tray at a time
A conventional oven at 200°C rapidly browns the bottoms. Bake one tray on a middle rack if it has enough bottom heat from the base of the stove. If the back dries quicker than the front halfway through rotating the tray. Because dark baking trays are better heat conductors, they can scorch the bottoms in less than 10 minutes.
About the original recipe
This recipe is based on the technique shared in her baking book Tanya Bakes and cookie videos that were going viral online. This adaptation replaces the measurements with metric weights and UK oven settings for home bakers who want a soft-centered result without hunting through numerous old blog posts.
Nutrition
Calories: 385 kcal | Carbohydrates: 48 g | Protein: 5 g | Fat: 20 g | Saturated Fat: 12 g | Sugar: 32 g | Fibre: 1 g | Sodium: 180 mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated and should only be used as an approximation.
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