Baking + Sweet, Cookies, Dairy Free, Recipes, Snacks + Sides, Special Diets, Vegan · May 14, 2023

Gideon’s Bakehouse Chocolate Chip Cookie

It’s finally here – the Gideon’s Bakehouse Recreation that is thoroughly tested, compared to the original, fool-proof and of course, delicious. This recipe is a result of numerous trials and errors (that you can see here! And here!) but the ending result was worth it. This cookie takes into account all the possible variables you need to get a thick, rich, tall cookie, plus copies some of Gideon’s Bakehouse’s best techniques. If you’re looking for a Gideon’s Bakehouse recreation, this is it. If you have no idea what Gideon’s is and are just looking for a great dessert, well, this is it for you, too!

What is Gideon’s Bakehouse?
What are the key components to a Gideon’s Bakehouse cookie?
So let’s start with the dough
The process of the dough
The double-chill method
The baking of the Gideon’s cookies
Why is this recipe in grams?

What is Gideon’s Bakehouse?

Gideon’s Bakehouse is an Orlando area bakery that is a cult favorite in the area. It’s got a fun gothic decor vibe, and is known for their huge slices of cake and their even bigger half-pound cookies. They have a myriad of flavors, from banana to cookies & cream (which is a personal favorite of mine), but their classic is of course, the good ol’ chocolate chip cookie.

When I first developed this cookie recipe (which tbh, was bad, but I hope to win you back here!) I had never even been to Gideon’s *cue audience gasp*

But I’ve then since made the trip, to truly understand the hype, the flavor and the texture of this cookie. Now that I feel equipped to recreate it, I think I found a pretty great way to make this Gideon’s Bakehouse recipe at home!

PS – it’ll never be the original, it took Gideon’s owner 15 years to perfect this recipe, but a girl can try!

As I developed this recipe, I found there were a few things I had to keep in mind:

Gideon’s cookies taste doughy, but aren’t doughy – I had to make sure this cookie cooked through, but still kept some moisture!
Gideon’s are always coated in chocolate chips that are somehow, not melted – this would play into some strategic baking timing & strategy.
These cookies have a lot of flakey salt on top – I skipped that when I first made this cookie, but believe me, it’s integral to the cookie’s success
The dough has a deeper flavor than most – I knew I couldn’t just “Mrs. Fields” my way through this, the flour and vanilla had to be important in this recipe.
The size of the cookies are 4 inches in diameter and 1.25 inches in height – I aimed for my cookies to be the same.
Gideon’s cookies are 8 ounces! – that’s crazy, but with 6 ounces of dough and 2 ounces of chocolate in each of my cookies, I feel like we live up to the half-pound cookie’s fame.

So let’s start with the dough

The founder of Gideon’s, Steve Lewis, said in his in-depth interview on WDW Prep to Go, that he prefers to serve his cookies at room temperature, not warm, and this is because you get a better flavor in the dough that way. It was during my research phase that I heard this, and knew that the dough was an important component. For the dough, I chose to use:

226 grams salted butter 2 sticks
200 grams dark brown sugar
100 grams white sugar
2 large eggs weighing about 67 grams each
8 grams high quality vanilla extract 2 teaspoons
220 grams all-purpose flour
200 grams cake or pastry flour
40 grams rye flour
7 grams Diamond Crystal kosher salt 2 teaspoons
8 grams baking powder 2 teaspoons
65 grams 70% chocolate 1/2 of a bar, chopped

The process of the dough

Let’s start with the brown butter

This recipe browns half of the butter and keeps the other half softened. This also uses salted butter. I chose to only brown half, because as you brown butter, you lose some of the water in the butter as it evaporates when the milk solids toast. This will help create a lower moisture level in the cookie, letting the cookies maintain some structure. It will also help with the flavor, nothing beats brown butter.

But the unbrowned butter is where the other magic happens. This butter will whip together with the sugars, creating aeration in the dough, allowing these cookies to get some of their signature height. Two butters, one dream.

Also we use salted because salted butter is like flavor reassurance. It helps naturally counter the sweetness of the cookie, creating a stronger, more contrasted flavor.

Now let’s talk about the flour

I use three types of flour in this recipe – all purpose, cake flour and rye flour. The cake flour is so that the cookies can still stand tall, while staying tender and pliable in the center. The all-purpose flour has a higher protein level, so it will create gluten to keep the cookie together. The rye flour is for color and flavor alone, it gives the dough an in-depth flavor, adding some subtle nuttiness and bitterness while still maintaining a signature cookie texture.

And lastly, the vanilla

A more intense baker would call for fresh vanilla bean, or vanilla bean paste in this recipe, but both of those are expensive and more difficult to source, so to keep this recipe approachable, I opted for a high quality vanilla extract. Just get ready to use a lot of it, so we still get that signature Gideon’s cookie vanilla richness.

The double-chill method

This recipe uses the double-chill method, meaning the dough is frozen 24 hours before baking, then goes straight into the oven, and then is chilled for a bit of time after baking. This is to allow the cookie to set twice: once before baking, once afterwards.

The freezing beforehand allows the dough to keep its shape, and it lets the flour absorb more of the moisture from the fat and sugars in the recipe. This both builds flavor and structure.

Placing the cookies straight from the freezer into baking also allows the chips to stay unmelted for as long as possible, which you’ll notice in the section above, is a key element to a Gideon’s cookie.

The chilling after baking is to allow the cookies to set, but still keep their doughy, soft interior texture. It’s critical to at least let them come to room temperature before eating!

The baking of the Gideon’s cookies

As you can see from the below, I tried these cookies out at numerous temperatures and times. The goal was to make sure they had time to bake, but didn’t have enough time in the oven to collapse.

If you see the term “swirl” that means I used a cup to swirl the cookies along the edges. I then nixed this technique because, well, there were chocolate casualties. I’ve since replaced that technique with recommending that while the cookies are warm, you use a utensil like a spoon to nudge any edges into a perfect circle. It takes a bit of carefulness, but so far it’s worked very well for me!

As you can see, 500 degrees scorched the chocolate and didn’t allow the cookie to bake fully.

375 degrees was a bit too low and let the dough collapse around the edges before it was fully done.

Even without the swirl, 375 was still baking a bit too blonde for my liking.

425 was promising, but the bottoms were still a bit too light, while the top of the cookie risked melting some chocolate chips.

In the end, we settled on 450! It gave the best texture, flavor, shape, and it looked exactly like a Gideon’s cookie!

Why is this recipe in grams?

Baking is a very finicky and exact science. The only way to ensure complete accuracy is through measuring by weight, and not volume. As much as I wish I could give you multiple ways to measure ingredients, in this recipe measuring by cups might cause some volatility and miss-matched results. I want to ensure you get the best results with this recipe (and I want to keep this recipe fool-proof!) so I highly recommend getting a small affordable kitchen scale if you want to move forward with this particular recipe!

And that’s it for this Gideon’s Bakehouse Chocolate chip cookie! It was a labor of love, truly.

If you make it, please tag me on Pinterest or Instagram so I can see! It’s my favorite thing to scroll through stories and see what you all are making.

And of course feel free to leave any questions, comments or reviews! This is the best place to reach me, and I’d love to hear from you <3