I Got a Sneak Peek of King Arthur’s 2024 Recipe of the Year—Here’s Why It’s 100% Worth Making

King Arthur chocolate chip cookie assortment

There are the people who look out for the Pantone Color of the Year, find joy in the new words added to the dictionary, or greatly anticipate which NFL teams will make it to the Super Bowl. I surely dabble in all these traditions, but when it comes to filling me with the utmost excitement, no event even comes close to the annual announcement of King Arthur Baking Company's Recipe of The Year.

I quite literally can't imagine a life without King Arthur Baking Company—and that's no exaggeration. My mother and I got acclimated to American food culture through baking when she and I immigrated to America from South Korea. When we quickly outgrew boxed baking mixes, we dug our noses into the rich baking compendium that was the King Arthur Baking cookbook from our local library.

My upbringing (and the irresistible pull of baked goods) conditioned me to easily embrace the brand's annual Recipe of the Year drop. I could feed a small country with the number of Perfectly Pillowy Cinnamon Rolls I've baked. Two of my closest friends and I have biweekly "Pizza Fridays," a cozy night in where the topics of discussion are chaotically all over the place. (And sometimes LEGOs are involved!) But the one constant is a Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza for dinner. Last year, KAB released 10 varieties of coffee cake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the recipe program. Coffee cake is my favorite dessert of all time, so naturally, I was 100% on board for that selection too.

So when I was invited by King Arthur Baking Company to get a sneak peek and taste of the 2024 Recipe of Year (ROTY) at their headquarters in White River Junction, Vermont this past September, I let out a joyful scream on the subway. Then I called my mom—and she freaked too! I packed my bags to head to a baker's wonderland.

Get the recipe: Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

What is King Arthur Baking's 2024 Recipe of The Year?

It was announced by the employee-owned company that the recipe of the year for 2024 is Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. Chances are, you're very familiar with this baked good. Back in September, I for one had to do a double take when the employee-owners made the announcement. A chocolate chip cookie? Really? But as I learned more about the recipe-development process and tasted my way through an array of cookies, I began to understand this cookie evolution. It seems that baked goods, like humans, can come of age.

Related: The Original 1938 Toll House Cookie Recipe

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What's So Great About King Arthur's Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies?

In order to ensure that a baked good rife with nostalgia was deserving such a prestigious title as Recipe of The Year, the King Arthur team did lots of rigorous testing (and retesting) and used some modern baking techniques to create this next-level chocolate chip cookie. Here's what sets this recipe apart.

1. Browned Butter

Melting down and simmering butter until it's brown with a deep, nutty flavor created a cookie with a complex, ultra-delectable flavor. Brown butter is one of those secret ingredients that makes pretty much everything—cookies, brownies, roasted vegetables—better. (Pro tip: You can make a big batch and store it in the fridge or freezer so these cookies are even easier to make!)

Related: Make-Ahead Brown Butter Is My New Favorite Cooking Hack

2. The Tangzhong Method

The process of cooking flour and milk to form an intensely concentrated moisture starter is synonymous with plush Japanese milk bread. Incorporating that technique in these cookies makes them soft and tender and helps them stay fresh for much longer than your standard chocolate chipper.

3. One-Bowl Mixing

One thing all bakers can appreciate is less cleanup. This cookie dough is whisked together by hand in one mixing bowl, which means you don't have to deal with a sea of dirty dishes!

Related: 16 One-Bowl Desserts Recipes

4. Wafers Over Chips

Using chocolate wafer or chopped semisweet chocolate bars in the cookie dough gives you a variety of chocolatey-ness throughout the cookie, versus the predictable, uniform chocolate bits that chocolate chips create.

5. Overnight Rest

Chucking the cookie dough in the fridge for 24 to 72 hours will give the ingredients in the cookie dough time to get acquainted with each other, thereby deepening the flavor of the final baked good.

Related: The Genius Way to Chill Cookie Dough in 15 Minutes Flat

What I Thought of King Arthur Baking Company's Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies couldn't be easier to make. I got the chance to make them directly in the test kitchen with hardly any hand-holding from the wonderful pro bakers. After tasting a fresh-baked batch of cookies at the sneak peek, I was confident these cookies deserve to be King Arthur Baking Company's recipe of the year. Because the recipe uses bread flour, the texture is chewy-meets-plush with thinly crisp edges, and they have a softness that doesn't fade away for several days (the recipe can also be made with all-purpose and gluten-free all-purpose flour.) I couldn't stop squishing the cookie I was handed to taste; it's really that soft! The buttery notes singing from the brown butter, harmonized with the semisweet chocolate chunks that appeared with every other bite.

The other thing you'll definitely notice about these cookies is that they're huge. The 4-inch diameter treat means that you have plenty of soft center and lots of crispy browned edges. Their scale was highlighted when I saw the Supersized, Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies on a sheet tray with five other iconic chocolate chip cookie recipes from King Arthur's recipe library (pictured above).

These cookies represent how we as a culture have evolved with our relationship with chocolate chip cookies, further embodying what it means to be modern baker. Also, they're super delicious, which is why I'll definitely be making them on repeat in my own oven throughout 2024 (and maybe a few days before).

Up next: The Secret to Perfect Fudge