I made cookies in an air fryer – and they’ll soon rival those from my favorite cookie shop

We love cookies, and we love air fryers (who doesn’t?), so it totally made sense for us to try to bake a batch of crunchy yet gooey biscuits over the weekend, especially since it would curb our spending on ready-made biscuits and tackle our need for a snack. 

There’s a fabulous shop nearby that bakes and sells scrumptious cookies, setting the bar super-high for beating. Armed with one of the best air fryers, an undeterred attitude and an appetite for all things sweet, we tracked down a cookie recipe on Instagram from @airfryingfoodi for some guidance before getting stuck into the store cupboard. 

As it turns out, social media and the web is awash with air fryer cookie recipes, with all of them pretty much using the same base ingredients (eggs, sugar, butter, flour and raising agent) and following the same method. As always, you can improvise or make adjustments if you don’t have a particular ingredient, or your local shop doesn’t stock it. The recipe we followed uses chocolate chips, but we used milk and white chocolate buttons instead since our corner shop had run out of the former. 

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Air fryer chocolate chip cookie recipe 

After a quick search online, we landed on a recipe from @airfryingfoodie on Instagram. It looked super-easy to follow and (almost) fool-proof. The recipe even looked similar to the air fryer chocolate chip cookies recipe on the Air Frying Foodie website so, reassured, we went for it.

We used a dessert spoon to measure out the cookie dough balls, making 22 cookies in total. If you want half the number of cookies, or you don’t have the time to cook them today, you can freeze any leftover dough for up to three months.

For gooey cookies, lower the cooking time by one or two minutes. Prefer them more crispy? Increase the cooking time by one minute.

Air fryer chocolate chip cookie ingredients 

Below are the ingredients you’ll need for air fryer cookies according to @airfryingfoodie:

Ingredients:

¾ cup softened unsalted butter1 cup sugar⅓ cup brown sugar2 large eggs1 teaspoon vanilla2 cups all purpose flour½ teaspoon salt½ teaspoon baking soda1 cup white chocolate chips (swapped for white chocolate buttons)½ cup candy canes or peppermint candy pieces, crushed (swapped for 1 cup milk chocolate buttons)

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Air fryer chocolate chip cookie method

As with baking most items, preparation is key. Check that you have all your ingredients at the ready, in the right quantities.

We used the Swan Retro 6L Manual Air Fryer. Depending on your air fryer, you may need to adjust the temperature a few degrees and timing settings by a couple of minutes.

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Step 1: Combine the butter and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. We used a spoon but you could use a hand mixer. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Step 2: Add the eggs, vanilla, salt, baking soda and one cup of flour. Mix until the dry and wet ingredients are combined.

Step 3: Add in the remaining flour and mix until combined.

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Step 4: Once you’ve made the dough, add the chocolate buttons and stir through the dough until they’re evenly distributed.

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Step 5: Use a small cookie scoop or dessert spoon to roughly shape the dough. Place the dough balls onto parchment paper in the air fryer drawer. Leave 1 inch / 2.4cm between each dough ball to allow enough room to spread.

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Step 6: Air fry for 5-7 minutes on 300ºF / 150ºC until the edges are crispy and the bottoms are no longer doughy.

Step 7: Let the cookies sit in the basket for 1 or 2 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

(Image credit: Future / Jennifer Oksien)

Air fryer chocolate chip cookies verdict

We learnt plenty from our experience of baking using an air fryer when following this recipe. The first was that we could only make four or five cookies at a time;  to bake all the cookie dough took us almost one hour. In addition, as a result of the size of our air fryer basket – and not wanting to spend more than hour baking – the size of our cookies weren’t all that impressive.

We stretched our cookie dough and air fryer baking to the limits when we went a little off-piste and added in cocoa powder. The dough lost its elasticity and began to fall apart. We managed to salvage it (a little) by adding in some more butter, but the baked results were far from perfect. Next time, we’ll follow this air fryer brownie mix cookies recipe instead.

With all that said, it was still fun to bake cookies in an air fryer. I’m sure it will take a few more attempts still (no bad thing) to get the absolutely perfect cookie with a gooey center and crispy edge, adjusting the timings and temperature. 

If you’re looking to do more bakes in an air fryer, why not try your hand at this recipe for gingerbread cookies recipe from Instagram and we followed this air fryer TikTok recipe for healthy, honey-garlic chicken tenders.