Tessa Arias, Chef and Cookbook Author
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In this post I’m going to share with you how various ingredients and techniques can affect the taste, texture, and appearance of your chocolate chip cookies. This will hopefully help you understand how a Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe works so you can make the PERFECT batch every time, whatever you consider to be perfect. This information will allow you to alter or create your own chocolate chip recipe that produces cookies just the way YOU like them. You’ll be an expert on the anatomy of the chocolate chip cookie.
I used the Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe as my control and made little changes and variations in techniques and ingredients to show you how they affect the cookie.
I halved and adapted the original Tollhouse recipe. I kept everything the same through each recipe test, changing just one key thing to see its effect and photographing the results for you.
Cookie Tools and Ingredients Used:
Tools and Ingredients Used (when applicable):
-Spring-Loaded Cookie Scoop (Medium or 1 1/2-Tablespoon size)
–Chicago Metallic sheet pans
–Escali Digital Food Scale
–KitchenAid 5-quart Stand Mixer
–Oven thermometer
–Unbleached parchment paper
-Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour
-Fine sea salt
-Light brown sugar
-Large eggs
-Unsalted butter at a cool room temperature
Control Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (142 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75 grams) packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1 cup (170 grams) semi sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with nonstick baking mats or parchment paper.
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, beating well to combine. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Scoop 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls and place onto prepared baking sheets.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Here is the control, an adapted version of the Nestle Tollhouse recipe. The full recipe I used to base all of the tweaks on is at the bottom of this post.
Baking Powder:
Removed baking soda from recipe and used 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. This produced results that were more cakey and puffed while baking.
Baking Powder AND Baking Soda:
Used 1/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. This produced results that were crisp at the edges, soft in the middle, with a good amount of spread. The combination of the two leaveners produced the best results in my opinion.
MORE Flour:
Increased the flour to 2 cups (250 grams) which created a more crumbly dough and very little spread. The cookies were small yet thick and relatively undercooked (ooey and gooey) in the middle.
MELTED Butter:
I replaced the room temperature butter with melted and cooled butter. Instead of creaming the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, I simply stirred the butter and sugars together then let sit for 5 minutes, until the sugar was better absorbed by the butter. This produced flatter cookies that had a shiny, crackled top reminiscent of brownies. They were also more crisp at the edges.
All Granulated Sugar:
I used 3/4 cup granulated sugar (150 grams) in this recipe which produced flat, white, chewy, and slightly crunchy cookies but with little flavor. Since baking soda (called for in the control recipe) requires an acid (such as brown sugar) to react, these cookies fell very flat as you can see by the way the chocolate chips protrude.
All Brown Sugar:
I used 3/4 cup (150 grams) packed light brown sugar in this recipe which produced thick, brown, and soft cookies with an intense butterscotch flavor. The original control recipe uses an even ratio of granulated and brown sugars. If you prefer your cookies to be flatter, chewier, or crisper, use more granulated sugar. If you prefer your cookies to be softer and thicker and have a pronounced butterscotch flavor, use more brown sugar.
24-hour CHILLED Dough:
I used the control recipe but chilled it in the fridge for about 24 hours before shaping and baking. This produced cookies that were slightly thicker, chewier, darker, and with a better depth of butterscotch flavor. If you have time, try chilling your next cookie dough for at least 24 hours, or up to 48 hours.
Final Comparison:
I have also found that using half Crisco and half butter makes the best looking cookie and is delicious. Otherwise I follow the Tollhouse recipe. This was a great post–lots of fun to see all the differences. Sometimes I think it’s the one we grew up with that we love the most.
Years ago the recipe DID call for all Crisco instead of butter. Now, my mother uses half Crisco and half butter for best results. This was our only experimenting.
Thanks for sharing this. I really like the chilled dough turnout. I like my cookies chewy, not crispy. I’m definitely going to chill my dough next time I make cookies. Thanks for the tips.
Another variation that I do and has turned out to be the best in my opinion has been to replace the butter with crisco. The results are a puffy, yet chewy cookie that’s not undercooked.
Thank you!! I’m going to try the baking power/baking soda cookies.. my cookies hardly ever turn out good. I’m trying this!
Thank you for this! This gives me something to think on & use. It seems like every time I make cookies they come out alittle different then I wonder why – over mixing, butter not soft enough or too soft, too much or not enough or too old flour (I don’t bake much), etc…. This is very helpful. I had heard using shortening will keep them from spreading so much, etc. but I know I’d eaten some good thick ones with just butter! This helps me alot, I’m looking forward to trying your suggestions!
Very cool post. I love it! 🙂
Thank you for this post! I am definately pinning this! 🙂 I use the Nestle recipe and follow it exactly, but I find that my cookies come out flat, almost exactly like the ones you have with all granulated sugar. I would like them to spread less; what do you think I’m doing wrong? Am I creaming my butter/sugar too much? Is my butter warmer than room temperature? Should I refrigerate them before baking? Could it be my oven? Please help! 🙂
HOW WOULD I CHILL THE DOUGH , ROLLED, OR IN A BOWL ,HOW? THANK YOU FOR YOUR GREAT INFORMACION.
You did a wonderful job on this experiment. I have been baking chocolate chip cookies for decades, but am never really happy because they often come out different each time! I wondered if putting raw dough on a warm cookie sheet during baking rotations would affect the outcome…I love the chilled look/extra flour look. A little thicker, with great flavor. Nice job! Thank you.
This is fantastic!
I think you should know, though, I found the last comparison pic on Pinterest this morning with only a link to tumblr. I have replaced it now with a link to your article since I really did want the whole article (which is even better than I’d hoped). Thanks for the detailed work!
Thanks for that! Tumblr can be a graveyard for credit/proper linking.
My daughter is busy baking for the fair so your post was so very helpful to her! Thank you so much for sharing.