These Bailey’s Irish cream chocolate chip cookies are a fun, spirited spin on traditional chocolate chip cookies. These cookies have a hint of creamy chocolate and coffee flavor. Plus they are supremely soft, delightfully chewy, and bake extra thick. You’ll love every morsel.
Ingredients
- Butter – we love to use plant butter or olive oil butter to reduce the saturated fat content. Regular unsalted butter works too. Let the butter soften slightly before creaming.
- Brown and granulated sugar – a mix of granulated and light (or dark) brown sugar results in cookies that aren’t overly sweet and have a nice thick bite and chewy texture.
- Bailey’s Irish cream liqueur – deliciously creamy whiskey liqueur that elevates these cookies. If you’re not a big drinker, look for travel size/minis since you’ll just need 3 tablespoons of Bailey’s for this recipe.
- All purpose flour – for that thick, chewy structure. We also like to use white whole wheat flour too if we have it on hand for some added micro-nutrients.
- Espresso powder – the perfect hint of coffee flavor that gives these cookies that Irish coffee vibe. We love to use Delallo or King Arthur’s espresso powder.
- Vanilla extract – enhances all those rich flavors in these cookies.
- Eggs – binding agent. Make sure they’re room temperature.
- Baking soda – leavening agent to lift these cookies to thick heights.
- Salt – to bring out all the other flavors.
- Dark chocolate chips – perfect pair of bitter and sweet to round out these cookies. 1 cup of chocolate chips is more than enough to have gooey chocolatey morsels in every bite.
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Tips for Making Bailey’s Irish Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Use a baking mat – baking mats help cookies bake evenly and prevent overspreading and overcooking (no brown bottoms). And they eliminate the need for cooking spray, so no greasy residue on your baking sheets or cookies.
- Chill the dough – due to the addition of the Bailey’s Irish cream, this cookie dough is a little stickier and needs to be chilled prior to baking. We recommend chilling for at least 1 hour. And as an added bonus, the flavors in these cookies will meld and deepen as the cookies chill. Plus they’ll bake extra thick (colder dough = less spreading when baked).
- Time is a guideline – if you’ve made any of our other cookie recipes, you probably know that we stress that the bake time is a guideline and not a hard rule. Keep an eye on your cookies and pull them out of the oven when the edges begin to set and turn golden brown to prevent over-baking. Taking them out a touch early results in gooey cookies that become delightfully chewy as they cool and set.
- Don’t skip the espresso – while a teaspoon of espresso powder may not seem like much, it’s enough to add a hint of coffee flavor (think Irish coffee, yum!) while deepening the chocolate flavor.
- Use a mixer (stand or hand) – the trick to superbly rich, thick cookies is beating the heck out of the butter and creaming it with the sugars. It’s just not possible to get the same results by mixing by hand. We love the Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer and this Kitchen Aid hand mixer. They’re magical and worth the investment!
How to Make Bailey’s Irish Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies
In a stand mixer, cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar at medium high speed until smooth and creamy and butter is lighter in color, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, Bailey’s Irish cream, and vanilla extract.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Refrigerate the dough 1-2 hours before shaping. Spoon about 1½ tablespoons of dough onto a baking sheet, spacing 3 inches apart. Repeat until the cookie sheet is full.
Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly golden but still soft. Allow cookies to cool partially on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack or wax paper to finish cooling.
How to Store
- Room temperature – store these cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
- Freezer – form cookies into dough balls and flash freeze for 1 hour on a cookie sheet. Transfer the dough balls to a large freezer safe Ziploc baggie for up to 3 months. You can also roll into a cookie dough log and wrap tightly with plastic wrap and tin foil to freeze. Bring to room temperature 30 minutes before baking. For dough log, slice and bake.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bailey’s Original Irish cream liqueur is a mixture of Irish whiskey, Irish dairy cream, and chocolate and vanilla flavoring. It tastes creamy and lightly sweet with a hint of chocolate and vanilla. And it is 17% alcohol by volume. It is most popular in Irish coffee and Irish hot chocolate and can also be used as a mixer for creamy cocktails.
No. According to research done by the USDA, a considerable amount of alcohol remains in baked goods after just 15 minutes of baking.
The addition of Bailey’s Irish cream causes this cookie dough to be stickier than traditional chocolate chip cookie dough. Therefore, you’ll want to chill the cookie dough before baking. We recommend chilling 1 hour before rolling and baking.
Most likely, you skipped the chilling time. Due to the addition of Bailey’s, this dough requires 1 hour of chilling in order to prevent cookies from overspreading when baked. Also make sure you wait until your oven is fully preheated to 350F. Baking cookies at lower temperatures will cause the edges to set more slowly, resulting in thin, overspread cookies.
Check out our other cookie recipes
- Coffee chocolate chip cookies
- Chocolate chip cookies without brown sugar
- Coconut sugar chocolate chip cookies with coconut
- Pumpkin pecan cookies
- White chocolate peppermint cookies
- Cookies and cream cookies
Bailey’s Irish Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- ¾ c plant or reduced fat butter
- â…” c granulated sugar
- ½ c light or dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 Tbsp Bailey's Irish cream liqueur
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2¼ c all-purpose or white whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp espresso powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 c dark chocolate baking chips
Instructions
- In a stand mixer, cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar at medium high speed until smooth and creamy and butter is lighter in color, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, Bailey's Irish cream, and vanilla extract.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Refrigerate the dough 1-2 hours before shaping. Spoon about 1½ tablespoons of dough onto a baking sheet, spacing 3 inches apart. Repeat until the cookie sheet is full.
- Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly golden but still soft. Allow cookies to cool partially on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack or wax paper to finish cooling.
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