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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.
What Makes Cookies Chewy, Crisp, or Cakey?
My free guide reveals the ingredients and tweaks that matter.
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:
Thank YOU!
People make fun of me because I LOVE my chocolate chip cookies as dark brown as I can get them (so I tend to use dark brown sugar) and as crisp as I can get them without burning them. I don’t want them moist – at all. I prefer them not to be flat, but not chunky because of course, it’s too hard for them to be crisp all the way through then!
In the old days I’d then microwave them (I don’t own & won’t use one now) for about 5 seconds which made the chips melt & the cookie remained crisp —-> A bit like heaven.
If you have any suggestions on how to do things to produce a cookie that is overall dark & crisp without being burnt, I’d appreciate the tips!
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Hi Asa, Thanks for your comment! Here’s a recipe that might suit your cookie preferences: https://handletheheat.com/2013/10/thin-crispy-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
I use the baking soda/baking powder recipe but I bake mine in a muffin tin. I have the 1oz scoop from Pampered Chef and it gives you a consistent chunkier sized cookie.
oh my word! this is awesome. and I didn’t have to do it! that makes it even more awesome! thank you ever so much for your repeated hard work and for sharing it. did I mention, awesome? 😀
My chocolate chip cookies are always considered the best by those who have had the opportunity to indulge in them. I am asked over and over to make them for various occasions. I use the original TollHouse recipe on the package, but my secret is to adjust the flour to which my hands render its perfect consistency (never a measured portion, so I cannot give you the exacts), resulting in the most soft, chewy cookie that never flattens out and is packed with flavor. My freezer is always stocked with bags of Nestle Chocolate Chips but never any cookies as they disappear faster than I can make them!
I love it. Thanks for the examples of each. I’m just wondering who got to eat all your experiments? I have had varied success with my chocolate chip cookies and I think this helps me to understand the differences. I have to say in the last couple months I made some of my best cookies ever. I don’t know what it is but it might be the high humidity.
What a great comparative study, and great page overall!! 🙂 Thank you, I was trying to figure out what kind of difference I would have switching out the baking soda for baking powder and here you have it!
Thank you for your time putting this together, bookmarked! 🙂
Which one is best if you like them really crunchy? I like them softer, the husband likes them really crunchy.
Here is a recipe for thin & crisp cookies: https://handletheheat.com/2013/10/thin-crispy-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
And here is a recipe for soft cookies: https://handletheheat.com/2013/10/soft-batch-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
The comment about cookies turning out different in one state vs. another has me wondering about the effect of electric vs. gas ovens. I know that the gas gives off moisture during combustion, so I have found that electric is better for breads, while gas is better for roasting meats.
A future experiment?
Good point! If only I had two different ovens at my disposal! My oven is an electric one. Maybe one day I can find a friend with a gas oven to test this theory out with cookies.
pinned it!! thanks 😉
Excellent experiment and documentation. Thank you.
The brown sugar one looks very good to me and extra puffy too. I will try it without the baking powder since the soda / extra brown sugar effect seems to do the trick.
Oh ho! I’m saving this page! Whoohoo! Now I have something to consult every time I make them! Now I have to go show mom. Thanks so much!
This is really THE ultimate chocolate chip cookie research! This should be published as an academic paper!