Cast Iron Skillet Cookie

A skillet cookie is a single, enormous chocolate-chip cookie baked right in a cast iron pan and served warm, straight from the skillet with a scoop of ice cream melting on top. The magic is all in the pan: cast iron's heat crisps the edges while the deep center stays soft and gooey, so you get the two best parts of a cookie at once. It comes together in one bowl and is meant to be shared with spoons.

Why cast iron for this

The whole appeal of a skillet cookie is the contrast between a crisp edge and a molten middle, and that contrast is a direct result of how a cast-iron pan handles heat. Its thermal mass means the metal itself gets and stays hot, so the dough touching the pan — the rim and the bottom — sets and browns hard while the thick center is still catching up. The same browning that gives a good cookie its toasty, caramel edge happens fastest right against that hot iron. Bake this in a glass or thin metal dish and you lose the fried-edge effect entirely. Any 10-inch skillet from our best skillets guide is the perfect size, and because you serve it in the pan it goes straight from oven to table.

Ingredients

• ½ cup (115 g) butter, melted and slightly cooled
• ½ cup (100 g) packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1¼ cups (160 g) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon fine salt
• 1 cup (170 g) chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, plus a few for the top
• Vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven and butter the pan.Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly butter a 10-inch cast iron skillet so the finished cookie lifts out cleanly.
2. Mix the wet. In a bowl, whisk the melted butter with both sugars until smooth, then whisk in the egg, the extra yolk, and the vanilla. The extra yolk is what makes the center rich and fudgy.
3. Add the dry.Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and stir just until no dry streaks remain. Fold in the chocolate. Do not overmix — a few strokes past combined is plenty.
4. Press it in. Scrape the dough into the buttered skillet and press it into an even layer right to the edges. Scatter a few extra chips on top so it looks the part.
5. Bake until just set at the edges. Bake 18 to 22 minutes, until the edges are golden and set but the center still looks soft and slightly underdone. It firms up as it cools, and an underbaked-looking middle is exactly what gives you the gooey texture.
6. Serve warm, in the pan.Let it settle for 5 to 10 minutes — the pan stays hot, so it keeps baking a little — then top with scoops of ice cream and hand out spoons.

Tips and troubleshooting

Underbake on purpose: the cookie continues to cook in the hot pan after it leaves the oven, so pull it while the center still looks soft. If it came out cakey rather than gooey, it baked a few minutes too long or had too much flour — measure by weight if you can. Brown sugar keeps it chewy and moist, so keep the ratio tilted toward brown. You can bake and serve this in the same well-seasoned pan you use for dinner; a savory-then-sweet pan is fine as long as it is clean. If you like the idea of baking in cast iron, the crackly-crust cast iron cornbread works on the very same heat-retention principle, and a skillet cookie makes a genuinely good cast iron gift paired with a bag of good chocolate.