10-Minute Air-Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies for Two

Each vacation season, my home turns right into a baking bonanza. There are cookie swaps, panettone experiments, elaborate cookie-decorating afternoons with my youngsters. I find it irresistible all, really. However typically I need a cookie second that is only for me. Not an entire tray destined for a celebration, not a batch large enough to share with neighbors. I simply need heat, gooey, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies that I could make and eat alone amidst the busy vacation rush. That is how this small-batch air-fryer cookie recipe was born.

For those who’ve one way or the other prevented the air-fryer craze till now, let me be the one to softly nudge you towards the sunshine. We all know it is nice for crisping potatoes, roasting salmon, and cooking Brussels sprouts, but it surely’s additionally nice for baking. Cookies is perhaps the place the air fryer shines brightest. It heats rapidly, excels at small-batch cooking, and creates a crisp-edged, soft-centered cookie in nearly half the time it takes the oven. The circulating air provides the outside a beautiful golden brown shade whereas preserving the molten-chocolate middle we’re all chasing.

This recipe makes six small irresistibly chewy cookies—simply sufficient to fulfill the fast want and go away you with a number of extras to get pleasure from later, with out saddling you with per week’s value of leftovers. There is not any fussy tools concerned, no stand mixer, no creaming butter. Every little thing comes along with a whisk and two bowls. Quite than utilizing granulated sugar or a mix of sugars, I rely solely on brown sugar for caramelized taste and softness, melted butter for easy mixing, and one egg yolk for richness and chew. After a fast 5- to 10-minute chill within the fridge, the dough corporations up simply sufficient to form into good little rounds.

As a result of each air fryer runs a bit in a different way, baking instances could range, however I discovered that 325°F (160°C) for six to 10 minutes yields persistently nice outcomes. The one actual trick is lining the basket with parchment and putting the dough balls towards the perimeter to weigh it down—in any other case, the fan could flap the paper upward and deform your cookies. And do not skip the parchment, there’s the chance that the delicate dough will bake into the small holes within the air-fryer basket, making the cookies unattainable to elevate out with out breaking into tiny items (and inflicting a multitude within the basket).

The top result’s a tiny batch of heat, melty, deeply satisfying chocolate chip cookies that you simply nonetheless don’t need to share with a single soul. Bah-humbug to sharing.