The Food Lab: The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]
"Stop making cookies."I'm sorry, what was that dear?
"I said, stop making cookies."
That's odd, I thought to myself. Why would she be saying that? Wouldn't any wife be pleased to be married to a husband who fills the house with the aroma of warm butter, caramelized sugar, and gooey chocolate? Indeed, wouldn't any human being in the right mind yearn to be constantly surrounded by sweet, crisp-and-chewy snacks?
Then, as I glanced around the apartment, wiping chocolate-specked hands against my apron, running a finger across the countertop and tracing a line into the dusting of white powder that coated every surface in the kitchen, eyeing the dozens of bags of failed experimental cookies that blocked the television, opening the refrigerator door to discover that more than half of its contents were batches of uncooked cookie dough in various stages of rest, I thought, maybe she does have a point.
For the past few months, I've had chocolate chip cookies on the brain. I wake up in the middle of the night with a fresh idea, a new test to run, only to discover that my 10 pound flour bin has been emptied for the third time. Did I really use it all up that fast? I'd put on my coat and walk out in the cold New York winter night, my sandals leaving tracks in the snow as I wander the neighborhood, an addict searching for a convenience store that will sell me flour at 3 in the morning.
I'm talking chocolate cookies that are barely crisp around the edges with a buttery, toffee-like crunchYou see, I've never been able to get a chocolate chip cookie exactly the way I like. I'm talking chocolate cookies that are barely crisp around the edges with a buttery, toffee-like crunch that transitions into a chewy, moist center that bends like caramel, rich with butter and big pockets of melted chocolate. Cookies with crackly, craggy tops and the complex aroma of butterscotch. And of course, that elusive perfect balance between sweet and salty.
Some have come close, but none have quite hit the mark. And the bigger problem? I was never sure what to change in order to get what I want. Cookies are fickle and the advice out there is conflicting. Does more sugar make for crisper cookies? What about brown versus white? Does it matter how I incorporate the chocolate chips or whether the flour is blended in or folded? How about the butter: cold, warm, or melted?
So many questions to ask and answers to explore! I made it my goal to test each and every element from ingredients to cooking process, leaving no chocolate chip unturned in my quest for the best. 32 pounds of flour, over 100 individual tests, and 1,536 cookies later, I had my answers.
How Cookies Crumble
Most traditional chocolate chip cookie recipes start with the same basic ingredients and technique: butter and sugar (a mix of white and brown) are creamed together with a touch of vanilla until fluffy, eggs are beaten in one at a time, followed by flour, salt, and some sort of chemical leavening (baking soda, baking powder, or a bit of both). The mixture is combined just until it comes together, then spooned onto a baking sheet and baked.When you bake a cookie, here's what's going on, step-by-step.
- The dough spreads:. As the butter warms, it slackens. The cookie dough begins to turn more liquid and gradually spreads out.
- The edges set: As the cookie spreads, the edges thin out. This, coupled with the fact that they are fully exposed to the heat of the oven and are constantly reaching hotter areas of the baking pan, causes them to begin to set long before the center of the cookie does.
- The cookie rises: As the butter melts and the cookie's structure loosens, this frees up water, which in turn dissolves baking soda. This baking soda is then able to react with the acidic components of brown sugar, creating gases that cause the cookies to rise up and develop a more open interior structure.
- Egg proteins and starches set: Once they get hot enough, egg proteins and hydrated starches will begin to set in structure, finalizing the shape and size of the finished cookie.
- Sugar caramelizes: At its hottest areas—the edges and the underbelly in direct contact with the baking dish—sugar granules melt together, turning liquidy before starting to caramelize and brown, producing rich, sweet flavors.
- The Maillard reaction occurs: Proteins in the flour and the eggs brown along with the sugar in a process called the Maillard reaction—the same reaction responsible for giving your hamburger or bread a brown crust. It produces nutty, savory, toasted flavors.
- The cookie cools. Once it comes out of the oven, the process isn't over yet. Remember that liquefied sugar? Well as the cookie cools, that liquid sugar hardens up, which can give the cookie an extra-crisp, toffee-like texture around the edges. Meanwhile, the air inside cools, which causes the cookie to deflate slightly, though when fully baked, the structure lent by eggs and flour will help it retain some of its rise.
Butter
[Photograph: Kumiko Mitarai]
Butter is where most recipes begin, and it provides several things to the mix.It keeps cookies tender. When flour is mixed with water (such as the water found in eggs), it develops gluten, a tough, stretchy network of interconnected proteins that set up as they bake. Gluten can't form in fat, thus butter will inhibit its overall formation, leading to more tender results. The higher the proportion of butter to other ingredients, the more tender your cookie will be (and consequently, the more it will spread as it bakes). I found that a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 part sugar to .8 parts butter was about right for a cookie that spreads moderately but doesn't end up cakey.
Cookie Fact #1: More butter = wider spread and more tenderness
Butter is essential for flavor. Substituting butter with a less flavorful fat like shortening, lard, or margarine yielded sub-par cookies. Butter is about 80 to 83% butterfat, 15% water, and 3 to 5% milk protein. These proteins brown as the cookie bakes, adding nuttiness and butterscotch notes to the final flavor of cookies.
Cookie Fact #2: Butter Gives The Most Flavor
Because of shortening's different melting qualities (and the fact that it has no water content), shortening-based cookies come out softer but more dense than those made with butter.
How butter is incorporated can also affect texture. In the early creaming stages of making a cookie, cool butter is beaten until it's light and fluffy. During the process, some air is incorporated and some of the sugar dissolves in the butter's water phase. This air in turn helps leaven the cookies as they bake, giving them some lift. Melting butter before combining it with sugar and eggs leads to squatter, denser cookies.
Cookie Fact #3: Melted Butter = Denser Cookies, Creamed butter = cakier cookies
I asked myself: if browning milk proteins provide extra flavor to cookies, how could I boost that flavor even more?
My friend Charles Kelsey, the man behind the fantastic Brookline, MA sandwich shop Cutty's, developed a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe for Cook's Illustrated magazine back in 2009. In his recipe, he made the ingenious discovery that browning the butter before adding it to the mixture would give the cookies a much more pronounced nuttiness.
But this created some other problems. Since the butter can't get hot enough to brown milk proteins until all of its water content has evaporated, brown butter adds no moisture to dough. This produces a couple of interesting results. Without water, sugar that is mixed into browned butter cannot dissolve (sugar molecules are highly hydrophillic and will dissolve readily in water, but not in fat), which makes it subsequently more difficult for them to melt into each other as the cookie bakes. The cookies ended up missing out on some of that caramelized toffee flavor I was after.
Cookie Fact #4: Less Dissolved Sugar = Less Caramel Flavor
With less water, you also end up with less gluten development, thus a cookie made with browned butter is softer and more tender than one made with creamed or plain melted butter. Soft and chewy is good, but I wanted a slightly better balance.
Cookie Fact #5: Creamed Butter = Lighter and firmer, Melted Butter = Denser and chewier
So how do I get the flavor benefits of browned butter while still allowing for sugar to dissolve and caramelize properly? The answer turned out to be in the eggs.
Eggs
Before we jump to the solution, let's take a quick look at what eggs have to offer in a cookie.
Egg whites provide a good amount of water, as well as protein. Egg proteins are particularly good at trapping and retaining bubbles of air or water vapor. The higher the proportion of egg white in a cookie, the more it rises during baking. Because of the extra water, you also get more gluten formation, which again leads to a taller cookie (provided you use enough flour to absorb that extra water). Other than the small amount in the butter, eggs are the main source of water in a cookie dough recipe.
Egg yolks also provide some moisture and protein, but more importantly they provide a well-emulsified source of fat. When cooked, egg yolk forms a tender protein coagulum that can keep cookies tender and fudge-like. A high proportion of egg yolk leads to a more brownie-like texture in a finished cookie.
By keeping the total mass of egg added to a dough the same but altering the proportion of white to yolk, you can achieve a variety of textures. Two whites and a yolk, for instance, produces the more open structure of the top cookie in the photo above, while three yolks and no whites produces the denser, fudgier texture of the cookie on the bottom.
Cookie Fact #6: Extra Egg Whites = Taller Cookies. Extra Egg Yolks = Fudgier cookies
Turns out that the combination I like best is actually a 1 to 1 ratio of egg whites to egg yolks, which conveniently is exactly how eggs naturally come. Ain't that something?
Going back to my initial problem of wanting the flavor of browned butter but disliking the way it prevented sugar from properly dissolving, I asked myself, what if I were to flip the script for these cookies: instead of creaming sugar and butter and adding eggs, why not beat together the eggs and sugar then add the butter?
I tried it, beating brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla with whole eggs in a stand mixer until the mixture became pale, aerated, and ribbony, with a nearly completely smooth texture.* To this, I added my browned butter, which instantly cooked the eggs and curdled them, turning the mixture into an oddly sweet and vanilla-y scrambled egg custard. Lesson learned: let that browned butter cool before adding it.
*A sugar and water solution becomes fully saturated at room temperatures at a ratio of about 2 parts sugar by mass to 1 part water (that is, you can't dissolve any extra sugar because it will stay granular). My working recipe contained about 4 ounces of egg and 10 ounces of sugar, so perfect smoothness was an impossible goal.
My next attempt with cooled brown butter fared better, but the finished cookies ended up with an oddly uniform texture and a relatively smooth top rather than the cragginess I'd been getting earlier.
Turns out that you actually want a balance between dissolved sugar and undissolved sugar to keep things texturally interesting.
Cookie Fact #7: Too Much Dissolved Sugar = Uniform Texture and Less Cracking
I settled on beating half of the sugar with the eggs until it completely dissolved, then incorporating the rest when I added the brown butter. The degree to which the butter is cooled before adding it to the mix can also affect how well it holds air when being mixed with the eggs. Warm butter flows very easily and doesn't trap bubbles well. The cooler it is, the more viscous it becomes, and the better it can trap air. Even a few degrees can make a difference. By letting my browned butter cool down until it was almost at room temperature, it became firm enough to beat into the egg and sugar mixture without deflating it.
Cookie Fact #8: The Warmer the Butter, the Denser the Cookie
In order to get my browned butter to chill a little faster and to add back some of the moisture that's lost in the browning process, I discovered that whisking an ice cube into it after cooking killed both birds with one stone.
Sugar
There's more to sugar than just sweetness! The type of sugar you use and its method of incorporation can have a profound effect on the finished cookies. White sugar is crystallized sucrose, a disaccharide consisting of a fructose molecule and a glucose molecule linked together. It is mildly hygroscopic (that is, it likes to retain moisture), and relatively neutral in pH.Brown sugar is mostly crystallized sucrose, but also contains a good amount of glucose and fructose, along with trace minerals that give it its flavor and a slightly acidic pH. Glucose and fructose are far more hygroscopic than sucrose.
Check out what happens if you bake cookies that are made 100% with white sugar or brown sugar:
You can clearly see the difference in spread. This happens because the baking soda in my cookie recipe is a powdered base, and needs some form of acid to react with in order to create the bubbles that leaven the cookie. Slightly acidic brown sugar causes cookies to rise higher when baking, which limits their spread. You end up with a cakier end result. White sugar, on the other hand, adds no leavening power, so you end up with a cookie that spreads wide. Because white sugar-based cookies more readily give up moisture, they also end up more crisp.
Cookie Fact #9: White Sugar = Thin and Crisp, Brown Sugar = Tall and Moist
A mixture of the two provides a good balance, and as I noticed in my egg tests, dissolving too much sugar can lead to a texture that's too uniform. With sugar left in distinct grains, the pockets of melted sugar that caramelize within the cookie as it bakes remain irregular, giving the cookie more textural interest.
But brown sugar has another advantage over white: it caramelizes more readily, leading to more intense flavor. I wondered: could I bump up the intensity of the toffee flavor while still maintaining a good white and brown sugar balance by pre-caramelizing some of my white sugar?
I tried it, heating my white sugar up in a pot until it was a golden amber before adding cold butter to rapidly chill it and then incorporating it into my dough.
No dice. First off, it's a mess trying to scrape hot caramel out of a pan and prevent it from hardening into a single massive clump. Secondly, it made my cookies far too soft and chewy (I recalled that in the process of caramelizing sucrose, it breaks down into glucose and fructose, acquiring their hygroscopic properties).
A much simpler way was to blend only the white sugar with the eggs so that it was pre-liquefied, giving it a little jump start on caramelization, then adding in the brown sugar later on with the melted butter.
Incidentally, if you want the absolute chewiest, most uniformly textured cookies, try replacing some of the white sugar with corn syrup, a sugar that is even more hygroscopic.
You end up with wide, flat cookies that stay soft and flexible even when completely cooled. Not only that, but since corn syrup is made up of simpler sugars than granulated sugars, it caramelizes more readily, leading to darker overall color.
Cookie Fact #10: Corn Syrup = Soft, Wide, Dark, and Flexible cookies
Corn syrup is so darn powerful, in fact, that even a small amount of it will completely alter the texture of your cookie. In the cookies above, the batch on the left was made with 5 ounces each of white and brown sugar. The batch on the right was made with 5 ounces of brown sugar, 4 ounces of white sugar, and 1 ounce of corn syrup. A substitution of only 10%.
Next up: baking soda and baking powder.
Leavening
Leavening—the introduction of air to the internal structure of baked goods—can come in many forms. In bread, it's the carbon dioxide produced by yeast. In a cream puff, it comes from expanding water vapor. In the case of cookies, we get it from egg proteins capturing expanding gases, creamed butter, and most importantly, chemicals, namely baking powder and baking soda. What's the difference between the two?
Baking Soda is pure sodium bicarbonate—an alkaline powder (aka, a base). When dissolved in liquid and combined with an acid, it rapidly reacts, breaking down into sodium, water, and carbon dioxide.
Baking Powder, on the other hand, is baking soda with powdered acids built right in. In its dry state, it's totally inert. But once you add a liquid, the powdered acid and base dissolve and react with each other, creating bubbles of carbon dioxide without the need for an external acid source. Most baking powders these days are double acting, which means that it contains two different powdered acids. One that reacts immediately upon mixing with water, and another that only reacts after it's heated, giving cakes and cookies a little boost early on in the baking phase.
Making cookies with varying degrees of both soda and powder, I found that baking powder generally produces cakier cookies that rise higher during baking, producing smoother, shinier tops, while soda yields cookies that are craggier and denser in texture
Check out this post for more on the differences between baking powder and baking soda.
Cookie Fact #11: Soda = Craggy and Coarse, Powder = Cakey and Smooth
Cakey cookies are not for me, and the brown sugar I was using in my cookies provided plenty of acid for the baking soda to react with. I landed on 3/4 teaspoon as the right amount. Moreover, because the Maillard reaction takes place more readily in mildly alkaline environments, baking soda has a powerful effect on how rapidly foods darken and develop browned flavors. Browning is a good thing when it comes to cookies.
Flour
The main differences in flour varieties comes down to protein content. Cake flour contains a relatively low amount, which leads to less gluten formation. Cookies made with all cake flour will be very soft, almost mushy, even when you've cooked them to what would normally be a beyon-crisp stage. All-bread-flour cookies, on the other hand, come out ultra-chewy. Alton Brown has a recipe called The Chewy which utilizes this effect.Cookie Fact #12: More Bread Flour = Chewier Cookies, More Cake Flour = Softer Cookies
The infamous Jacques Torres recipe from The New York Times calls for a mixture of low-protein cake flour and high-protein bread flour in an attempt to balance the two. I found that by working carefully with the ratio of other ingredients, you can get away with using regular old all-purpose flour with no problem.
Since flour provides the bulk of the structure in a cookie, the amount you use can alter the texture of the cookie. A small amount of flour compared to butter (a ratio of 1 to 1 or less) will give you cookies that spread out into a wafer-like lace cookie. Extra flour (a ratio of 1.3 to 1 or higher) will give you cookies that barely spread at all as they bake, with centers that stay dense and dough-like, even after being almost fully cooked.
This may be a good thing for some folks, but I like my cookies to have a nice balance between the two. I settled on a ratio of 10 ounces flour to 8 ounces of butter.
Cookie Fact #13: Less Flour = Lacier Cookies, More Flour = Doughier Cookies
Turns out that how you incorporate that butter also makes a difference (are you sensing a theme here? When it comes to cookies, apparently EVERYTHING MATTERS).
The dough above was made by really working the flour into the butter and egg mixture before subsequently folding in the chocolate chips. As you can see, it comes out very smooth and it bakes into correspondingly smooth cookies. Because extra kneading creates a stronger gluten network, the cookies also end up rather tough.
Much better is to barely work the flour in, folding it or mixing it with a stand mixer until it just pulls together into a dough. I incorporate the chocolate half way through this process, so that I don't accidentally overmix the dough while trying to fold the chocolate in.
Cookie Fact #14: Less Kneading = Craggier Cookies and Better Texture
The resultant scoops of dough should have a natural cragginess to them even before baking.
If you like extra craggy cookies, Baking Illustrated offers a neat tip for increasing that cragginess: tear the balls of dough apart with your fingertips and moosh'em back together with the jagged torn part facing outwards.
Provided you've used enough flour and your other ratios are spot on, those crags should appear in the cookies' final baked form.
The Chocolate
When I first started testing, I figured that the only real question when it came to chocolate would be what brand and what cacao percentage. Turns out that how the chocolate is incorporated can also affect texture.
Chocolate chips produce the most regular cookies, with small, melty pockets of chocolate. Chocolate discs and chunks will cause some degree of layering in the dough, creating a flakier cookie with larger sections of molten chocolate. Chopped chocolate produces the most contrast—the small bits of debris and chocolate shavings get dispersed throughout the cookie dough, disrupting its texture and giving a nice chocolatey flavor to the whole affair, while larger chunks still melt into large gooey pockets. The only way to get this effect is to hand-chop whole chocolate bars with a knife.
Cookie Fact #15: Hand-Chopped Chocolate = Most Intense Flavor and Interesting Texture
Hand chopping also gives you control over the exact size of your chocolate chunks. I quickly discovered that I like quite a bit of chocolate (a full 8 ounces), and I like it in large, 1/2- to 1/4-inch chunks.
I spent an awful lot of time experimenting with how the temperature of the dough during chocolate incorporation can affect the final outcome of the cookie. Properly tempered chocolate (if you're a chocolate nerd, I'm talking chocolate with type V crystals) will melt at a relatively high temperature—around 95°F or so.
By incorporating chocolate into dough that's been allowed to rest in a warm spot until it gets above 95°F (near my preheating oven worked), or by gently stirring already-made cookie dough that's been warmed to above 95°F, you end up dispersing some melted chocolate throughout the works.
The result is a sort of swirl effect that can be quite delicious if you do it carefully, though you miss out on the classic large melty pockets.
I quite like cookies made with dough that has been warmed to 80°F and gently swirled. This melts the very tiniest bits of chocolate, but leaves the larger chunks intact.
Cookie Fact #16: Stirring Warm Dough Alters Chocolate Dispersal
In the interest of not being labeled a total neurotic, I decided to leave this particular step out of the final recipe, but if you're anything like me, you'll wait until everyone leaves the kitchen before pulling out the thermometer you keep in your back pocket to test the temperature of your dough before folding it.
Fixing Flavor
Ok, we've been at this for a while. Time for a quick recap. So far we've covered butter, sugar, eggs, leavening, flour, and chocolate. As far as covering the major chemical and physical players in the cookies' final outcome, we're done.Here's what we're working with so far: White sugar is beaten into whole eggs until it dissolves. Butter is browned and chilled with an ice cube to add back lost moisture and hasten its cooling, before being beaten into the egg mixture, along with brown sugar flour and baking soda are folded in very gently, along with chocolate.
Cookie Fact #17: Cookies Need More Salt Than You Think
Salt (and quite a bit of it) is essential to balance the flavor of caramelized sugars, and a good amount of vanilla is a must (though, as our recent taste test has shown, even imitation vanilla flavoring will do just fine).
Cookie Fact #18: Inexpensive Vanilla is Indistinguishable From Fancy
Even with regular salt mixed into the dough, I like adding a little sprinkle of coarse sea salt to the tops of the cookies, gently pressing it in right as they come out of the oven for little crunchy bursts of salt that pop with each bite.
With flavor and ratios out of the way, it's time to talk thermodynamics.
Taking Temperature
We've already seen how the temperature of the dough can affect how chocolate is incorporated, but it can also affect how it bakes. Both the starting temperature of the dough and the oven temperature have an impact.I baked cookies at various temperatures in 25°F increments ranging from 250°F up to 450°F. When baked at a lower temperature, the dough has more of a chance to spread out, leading to flatter, wider cookies. Conversely, cookies baked at higher temperatures spread less. Even a difference of as little as 50°F makes a big difference.
Moreover, the lower the oven temperature, the more evenly the cookie bakes, with less of a contrast between the edges and the center. In fact, when the oven temperature gets low enough (around 275°F and below), you completely lose any contrast, producing a cookie that's more or less homogenous across the board.
Cookie Fact #19: Cooler Oven = Wide Cookies. Hotter Oven = Compact Cookies
Beyond oven temperature, starting temperature of dough also affects the outcome.
As you can see, cookies cooked straight from the fridge will stay a little more compact, while those that are allowed to warm will spread more. By adjusting the starting temperature of the cookie dough and the temperature of the oven, you can create a wide variety of textures and contrasts.
Cookie Fact #20: Warmer Dough = Wide Cookies, Cooler Dough = Compact Cookies
I like the flexibility that being able to cook cookie dough straight from the fridge lends you, so my recipe is designed to make cookies from dough that starts at 40°F. I found that baking in a 325°F oven until the edges are nice and toasty brown will leave you with a cookie that's still plenty soft and chewy in the center.
Giving it a Rest
You still here? I haven't bored you with cookie talk yet? Good, because we're coming round third base and into the home stretch here. But not so fast. We gotta take our time with this one. Literally.Back when the New York Times published that Jacques Torres recipe in 2008, I'd never heard of the concept of resting a cookie dough, yet Mr. Chocolate himself insisted that it was the secret to better flavor. Since then, I've talked to several pastry chefs and cookie experts who all agree: letting your cookie dough sit overnight in the refrigerator produces better tasting cookies.
It seems a bit finicky (and honestly, who wants to wait for cookies?), but after trying it dozens of times, the results are absolutely undeniable.
If there's one single thing you can do improve the flavor of your cookies, it's to let the dough rest. They bake up darker and more flavorful. That butterscotch note that was barely hinted at when you baked the dough right after mixing? It'll blow you away with its intensity and complexity by the second day.
So how does it work? Harold McGee explains it in Keys to Good Cooking. Turns out that during the resting process, both flour proteins and starches break down a bit. How does this help improve flavor?
It helps to think of proteins and starches as large LEGO structures. During the process of browning, those large structure are broken down into smaller parts and individual pieces and subsequently rearranged. Sort of like destroying that LEGO castle so you can build a dozen spaceships. Now, both of these phases—the breaking down and the reconstruction—take time.
By resting the dough, you give the deconstruction phase a head start. It's as if you left your LEGO castle sitting out over night and your annoying little sister came by and smashed it all, King of Tokyo-style. With the pieces separated, building your spaceships is much faster.
It's really the same thing, except instead of LEGOs, you've got proteins and flour. Instead of an annoying sister, you've got enzymes. And instead of awesome spaceships, you get awesome cookies. How awesome? We're talking, oh, a million puppies on the moon wearing superhero underpants under their little doggie spacesuits levels of awesome.
Cookie Fact #21: An Overnight Rest Yields Superior Flavor
And while it's tough to be patient, awesomeness is something worth waiting for in my book.
When all is said and done, my final recipe has ended up combining some unique techniques from a couple of my favorite recipes—the browned butter from Charles Kelsey's Cook's Illustrated recipe and the resting from Jacques Torres' New York Times recipe—along with a couple of my own novel twists—dissolving half the sugar in the eggs and chilling the melted butter with ice before incorporating—to produce a cookie that hits all the right notes. A deep, rich, butterscotch-and-toffee flavor, crisp edges, and a soft, chewy center, an irregular crumb structure with a craggy top, and a mix of chocolate dispersed through the cookie in fine threads and big gooey pockets, all with a nice sweet-and-salty balance.
Are they the simplest cookies in the world? No way. Are they worth the extra time and effort? I certainly think so.
"This is the last batch, I promise," is what I told my wife about a week ago. Since then I've gone through another 10 pounds of flour. Heck, if you want to know the truth, I've baked four batches of cookies while I was writing this article, which means that even as I hit that "publish" button, this recipe is already obsolete, a work in progress. My wife went to bed over 5 hours ago and left by giving me a gentle hug from behind and a soft whisper in my ear: "Please stop making cookies."
if you've come along this far, then you know what you need to do to adjust my recipe to suit your own tastesThe beauty of understanding how ingredients interact with each other is that even if my definition of the "best" chocolate cookie isn't in line with yours, if you've come along this far, then you know what you need to do to adjust my recipe to suit your own tastes. Like your cookies chewier? Substitute some of that all-purpose flour for bread flour. Want your cookies to rise up a little taller? Add a touch of baking powder or replace the yolk of one of those eggs with an extra white. You like your chocolate in distinct pockets? Just use chocolate chips instead of hand-chopped. Want your cookies more flexible and chewy? Just replace some sugar with a touch of corn syrup.
You get the idea. Doesn't that make you feel all empowered and stuff?
"STOP MAKING COOKIES!"
I promise I will, dear... After this batch.
(1 - 100) of 173 Comments
So I have to applaud the dedication in making 1500 cookies to perfect something that is pretty darn good when you just follow the recipe on the bag of chocolate chip cookies.
PS - Want to lose in divorce court? Tell the judge you are leaving your significant other because he or she makes too many cookies.
Epic! I can't wait to try this!
Just one question, though: have you noticed or tested the difference between baking on a silpat vs. parchment? I've never tested them side by side, but it seems that when I bake cookies on a silpat, there's noticeably less caramelization on the bottoms than when I use parchment. Thoughts?
Oh yeah - definitely bake on parchment, not silpat. Silicone is a good insulator, so it'll prevent the bottoms of your cookies from browning. That's good for some things, but not for chocolate chip cookies where a decent amount of browning is required.
@mkindc
No, there's not really any replacement for time. You need time for those proteins and starches to break down after making the dough. Certainly you can rest cookie dough in a vacuum sealed pouch, and come to think of it, that's actually a good way to bring it up to the desired 80°F in a sous-vide water bath before scooping and baking. Maybe I'll give that a shot.
Also when I try to use the facebook like button on the left side the dialog box hides behind the text. Might want to take a look into that. (Using Chrome if that helps)
Thanks! One more question: In the recipe, you say to use a 1 oz scoop to get 3 tablespoons (1.5 oz) volume. Does that mean using a heaping (not leveled off) scoop, or am I missing something?
Yeah, that typo's been fixed, and I'll ask about the facebook thing!
As for the scoop, yes, it should be heaping (it'll do it naturally).
@bennyb
A combination of browned butter and sugar that caramlizes more easily because it is dissolved in the egg prior to incorporating other ingredients.
@Rob1234
That's cool, I'll have to test that! Ugh, that means another batch of dough :)
@PaulC
It's really personal preference. One thing is for sure: no amount ot 100% cacao chocolate should come in contact here. Even a touch comes through as massively bitter pockets.
What about butter types? Whether it's the regular unsalted you find in store vs. unsalted Kerry Gold Irish butter does it make much of a difference flavor wise when making brown butter?
Also what's your opinion on the type of pan one should use with parchment paper? Regular non-stick, air insulated, or the wild card being a muffin top pan?
It'd be quite similar to how brown sugar works. Turbinado, demerara, and the like all have a good amount of molasses leftover on the granules, which adds fructose, glucose, and a few other trace minerals and vitamins. In terms of how it'd affect texture, it's similar to brown sugar.
yeah, that's in the post itself. I prefer 80°F cookie dough for scooping, but it's a PITA to get it there, so I left it out of the final recipe and just adjusted oven temp/baking time to work straight out of the fridge.
For best results, let the dough warm to 80°F, scoop, and bake at 350 instead of 325°.
I do have a fairly nit-picky complaint about the format of the article, though: I was halfway through it before I realized that the Cookie Facts were preceded by the information that led to them. The way the article is formatted, they seem like section headings instead, which makes them seem like they're out of order. I'd throw in a horizontal line to separate each Cookie Fact from the new section that follows it.
(Why, yes, I was planning to make a batch of Christmas sugar cookies tomorrow. But maybe I should make the dough Friday and bake them on Sunday.)
You've managed to test virtually every cookie making theory and practice with this article. I am all too aware of what it's like to go through pounds and pounds of flour, sugar, and butter, trying to get something *just right*. I'm in awe of this behemoth of an article, as I can truly appreciate the effort something like this takes. Well done!
And as for your question, @ElsaMac: I've aged nearly every cookie dough I've ever made, just for the hell of it. Some benefit more noticeably than others - I think doughs using brown sugar tend to get that butterscotchy flavor.
That's a good point. I was trying to figure out a good way to call those out. They're really supposed to be more like sideabars than headers. Perhaps a line will work.
@Theotherworldly
Yes, I'd go with a higher ratio of flour, some baking powder in addition to the soda, and a higher heat.
@ElsaMac
I haven't really. Though from what I can conclude, it's mostly effective for darkcookies like chocolate chip. You don't want that excess browning in a sugar cookie, for instance.
@One Lady Owner
Good luck in your business!
@abcabc
A little over a month of near-daily testing, preceded by a couple of weeks of gathering research and planning those tests.
Even without the brown sugar, I suspect chilling sugar cookie dough for 36-48 hours should hydrate the flour better and make a rounder, more developed flavor. I'll give it a try this weekend.
The longer you age it, the better the flavor gets, though the biggest difference is between days 0 and 1
@berzerkeley
Those "facts" are taking into account all other things being equal. Shortbread cookies contain no egg and no leavening, so are much lower in moisture to begin with, which makes them shorter and less prone to rising/tenderizing than a drop cookie like a chocolate chip cookie.
But within the realm of shortbread, yes. The more butter you use, the more tender the cookies will be.
@elsamac
Please report on your findings!
From Thomas Keller:
http://www.foodgal.com/2009/06/tantalizing-preview-ad-hoc-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe-by-thomas-keller/
In the tradition of Serious Eats, I'll call it the "cookie cognition theory." I've grown up with the soft chewy warm Nestle Tollhouse cookies. To me, those are the cookies I love. Not saying you're wrong to want a crunchy exterior, we just each have our own picture in or head when we think "cookie." I'm sure for some unfortunate soul it's a oreo or Milano, but for me those fluffy, melt in your mouth cookies are the bees knees.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
I also grew up using butter-flavored shortening, and could never understand the appeal of flat cookies. The texture difference is huge!
I was also taught to use shortening for pie crusts, and in the interest of reducing the amount of chemicals in our food, I've been experimenting with a combination of butter and lard. I've found that even a small amount of lard or shortening combined with real butter produces that wonderfully high, fluffy texture without sacrificing the butter flavor.
@ Kenji:
When's the book coming out, man? You keep teasing with all these fabulous articles and some of us are impatient for a real book full of them! No pressure.
I doubt I'll go to such lengths to get to the perfect cookie, because I pretty much enjoy every single variation you've mentioned. I don't think my waistline can handle them all, though.
But, I do feel, in my experience, that the best chocolate chip cookies do have either some toasted walnuts in them (preferably very finely chopped or ground in a food processor) and/or some oatmeal (once again, ground in a food processor). They may also have some malted milk powder and/or a very small pinch of cinnamon and/or a pinch of espresso powder or something like that.
It's not that these things are overtly noticeable but they do add a depth of flavor to your standard chocolate chip cookie.
It's definitely understandable that, given the endless variables, you didn't make every single possible cookie!!
But, if you get a chance to give us a recipe with some ground toasted walnuts and/or oatmeal in there, that'd be... sweet!!!
http://www.curiouscook.com/site/2012/09/caramelization-new-science-new-possibilities.html
BUT...credit should be given where credit is due. The technique of resting chocolate chip cookie dough overnight appeared in Alice Medrich's book COOKIES AND BROWNIES in 1999, almost a decade BEFORE Mr. Torres publicized it in the New York Times. Ms. Medrich's superb recipe (pg. 48) has been my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe for fifteen years.
Did you do any experimenting with a convection oven?
And thank you for not blaspheming the name of the good cookie by putting, ugh, nuts in 'em.
Will try this recipe for sure.
Yes, I did grow up Catholic, why do you ask?
If it works for you and you like it, then it's a good thing!
I personally dislike artificial butter flavor with the exception of movie theater popcorn :)
@smgord
Oh, I like it at 80°F for giving it a quick stir so that the small chococlate nubs melt a bit. You could also just mix the chocolate in after it comes to 80°F, but I find it easier to do the other way around.
If it's warmer, you bake at a higher temperature so that it can set before it spreads too much.
@Kibble2007
I haven't done much gluten free testing unfortuantely. I've seen decent cups with the Thomas Keller Cup-4-Cup stuff though.
@Nicole W.
Just use a whisk for the eggs and sugar, and a wooden spoon for the rest!
@Ken G
I didn't include that in my testing because I wanted to keep it pure, but no reason you couldn't!
@butterygoodness
You wouldn't want to as the bottoms would end up burning with that much energy being pumped into them.
@atg117
I'm not familiar with the Levain cookies…
@MrsSell
Books, actually! Two volume set that's coming out in the fall.
@Maple Penguin
Those sweeteners are all mixture of glucose/fructose and would behave relatively similar to corn syrup in terms of retaining moisture and adding chewiness.
@film_score
I love nuts in my cookies! Just fold in toasted walnuts with the chocolate chips.
@iwingfield
I talk about that in the article!
@Josh Mandel
Ah, thanks for that! I hadn't seen that book. I'll check it out.
@Porgy_Sashimi
Not much, I don't have one at home, but using convection for cookies or cakes causes the outside to brown faster, which can be desirably if you like that crisp crust.
@ymandel
I'm not sure, actually. If you're only subscribed to the main SErious Eats feed, then it won't show up. You have to be subscribed specifically to the Sweets feed to see it.
@Pupster
I'm not familiar with them!
@CTMike
KENJI SORRY BRO
@Eugenek
I love people who love geeks
@wildbluehigh
Yes, that's a really cool idea!
Chocolate - one recipe I've made actually has you put oatmeal and some chocolate chips in a food processor. There's also unground oatmeal and chocolate chips. I find that oatmeal (if you like oatmeal in your cookies) helps give the cookies structure, and the ground chocolate gives it a swirl effect without having to warm the dough.
Glad you also addressed the starting temperature of the dough! I always pop my dough in the fridge for a few minutes before baking because I don't like how much they spread if they go in the oven from room temperature. It's also a little easier to scoop them when the dough is harder.
I think the trickiest part is knowing when they're done. Given the rest time (since they keep cooking even when you take them out of the oven) I find that the ideal "doneness" is to take them out just before they actually look done. They will be a little gooey if you eat them immediately but if you let them cool they are crisp on the outside and perfectly chewy.
Awesome write-up! I've been working on CC Cookies for the better part of a year and cannot wait try incorporating some of these techniques.
Question: Several months ago I had a batch that sat and sweated a bit and almost formed a membrane/skin on the outside. When I baked them, that skin broke as the cookie spread on the sheet. (I liken it to a nicely poached egg breaking and oozing yolk out.) The original membrane/skin formed a delicious crust. Any thoughts on this? I haven't been able to replicate it!
But that's the secret of really great food writing. The underlying methodology and knowledge gained doesn't mean I actually have to want the final recipe. Even when I have different assumptions about what the ideal end result is I still can gain a substantial amount just from following the process.
I never thought that butter-flavored shortening had a funny flavor until my mother-in-law said it was nearly overwhelming to her. I attribute that to my growing up with the flavor in most baked goods, so I don't notice it. I figure that's better for me, because I can enjoy baked goods with either shortening or butter and it doesn't bother me!
You're right, I was sloppy and used the very vague term 'chemicals' when I should have said 'artificially-processed chemical ingredients that do not occur spontaneously in nature.'
Thank you for your dedicated efforts and sharing them.
I noticed that you say you prefer a ratio of 0.8 parts flour to 1 part butter and 1 part sugar, but your recipe is actually 0.8 parts butter to 1 part flour and 1 part sugar.
I have one interesting variation to share. I've seen recipes that replace the brown sugar with a mix of white sugar and molasses. I tried using all white sugar plus 4 tbsps molasses per cup of sugar and was pleased with the results. I might reduce the white sugar to make up for the added sweetness of the molasses next time.
Whoah, weird! I've never seen that happen, and I've tried resting dough like that too. Was the sweat greasy or watery?
@derekblanger
There are links to the recipe at the top and bottom!
@chillylula
Well, if it's made with artificial butter, then it's got artificial butter flavor, but like I said, I'm particularly sensitive to that stuff. If it works for you, use it!
@smignoga
I briefly addressed that early on in the article. It's because cookies are such low moisture and the acid in the brown sugar is not in solution when you mix them. The reactions don't really get going until the cookies start to spread, the butter melts and frees up water, and the baking soda and brown sugar both enter the same solution.
I would suggest that when you go out for more ingredients, you might want to distribute paper sacks of cookies to strangers on the street. "I made too many cookies. Want some?"
I can't say for sure what the sweat was made up of. I wish I had looked at it more closely. If I had to guess right now I would say it was more grease than water. That doesn't make much sense considering the conditions by which the sweat was brought out, but it's what I'm inclined to speculate.
As you said in your posting, I know you prefer a more craggy cookie. I portion out my dough on a scale and roll them into very smooth balls before resting the dough in the refrigerator. I'm putting a batch together now and I think I'll go for the smooth balls again but give them a dunk in a sodium hydroxide bath before resting the dough in the fridge. (Apparently what I'm after is a german pretzel on the outside and a chocolate chip cookie on the inside!)
I'm also pretty jazzed to play with raising the starting temp of the dough before baking.
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1.25 cups (2.5 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1.5 cups dark brown sugar – tightly packed
• 0.5 cups white granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs and 1 yolk
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla
• 12 oz (1 bag) semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups walnuts or pecans - coarsely chopped (optional, but I like it)
Instructions
1. Make browned butter, use solidified at room temperature.
2. Cream butter with sugars and salt for about 5 minutes in mixer (well incorporated)
3. Fold in eggs and yolk one at a time stirring minimally, fold in vanilla.
4. Combine the flour and baking soda in a bowl until uniform.
5. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients 25% at a time, mixing until just incorporated. The dough will become quite sticky!
6. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
7. Refrigerate the dough for 48 hours.
8. Form dough into tight spheres about 2.5 tbsp in size.
9. Place on a thick baking sheet that is well-buttered.
10. Bake at 370 degrees for about 14-16 minutes or until browning on the sides and on top.
Enjoy!
What's your thinking on the ATK/CI adding 4Tbs of room temperature butter to 10tbs of hot browned butter to then whisk together, add sugars, incorporate, egg + yolk then 30 sec whisking @ 3min intervals x 3? Keni, I also dig how you attribute your sources... resting in the fridge overnight!! Man imma be a LEGEND!!
Thanks
No nuts; no dice…
Walnuts or pecans used to be almost standard in the chocolate chip cookie. Now the chocolate chip cookie has been infantalized (like the Muffin has).
Heyyyy! how much giant, gooey, mushy, chocolate crap can we cram into a cookie? The more the better.
Ever since "cookie dough" became an actual food; an actual "flavor", in this culture, it's been going downhill. Just give me a damn candy bar already!
Nuts are what make the cookie work, and keep it from being that thing where hock saliva deep in your throughout from a sugar O.D. They are what give the cookie dimension.
The only suggestion I have is to only bake a few and then freeze the rest because you will eat all of what you bake each time.