Paul Hollywood's Foolproof Trick For Extra Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Considering that Paul Hollywood has spent his career as a head baker for fancy hotels and a judge on "The Great British Bake Off," you'd expect him to know how to make a solid chocolate chip cookie — and you'd be right. These little treats are already an example of a simple dessert at its finest, but Hollywood offers an easy tip that can transform them into next-level delicacies. All you need are small chunks of chocolate.

Hollywood's key to an elevated cookie involves hiding a chocolatey secret in the center. Before baking your dough, he recommends making a little hollow inside each scoop, placing a little chocolate inside, and re-forming your cookie so that the middle is completely covered. "With that extra bit of chocolate on the inside, when you break it open, the gooeyness of the chocolate will just fall out and it's delicious," Hollywood told Wired. Not only will this help prevent your dessert from becoming dry, but it's also an easy way to achieve stuffed cookies without getting a whole bunch of other ingredients involved — and who doesn't love extra warm, melted chocolate?

When choosing the filling for your chocolate-stuffed cookie, you can get creative. Break off a square from a chocolate bar for each cookie, but pick a flavor you love — whether it's milk, dark, white, or semi-sweet, or a flavored one like sea salt, hazelnut, or raspberry. If your square won't fit in an indentation, you can also flatten out each scoop of dough, place the filling on top, and then fold and roll it up into a ball shape. You can use a cluster of chips, too, but a hunk of chocolate bar is simply thicker and easier to work with.

When it's time to go in the oven, you may want to underbake your cookies just a smidge so that the center remains nice and soft. As long as the edges are golden, it's okay if the middles of your desserts are still pale, especially because they'll keep baking for a few minutes more once they're back on the counter. To enjoy these treats to their fullest, eat them warm and fresh right out of the oven while the filling is still melty. But, don't stress if you can't down them all in one sitting since leftovers can always go in the microwave for about 15 seconds to achieve similar results.