This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
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 so much for doing this. I have had such bad luck with CC cookies and could never figure out why. I’m looking forward to trying some of the different variations for eating, um, research purposes!
Thank you so much for your clear, straightforward experiment. I try different versions all of the time, but I just enjoyed them & didn’t take good enough notes to duplicate my favorites. I enjoyed reading everyone’s responses. My favorite variation is to add chopped walnuts or pecans. I love dark brown sugar, melting & creaming the butter & sugars & cooling the dough. I always use dark chocolate, a few times with dried cherries added. I’ve never tried the cornstarch. How do you think that added cornstarch affects the outcome? Thank you for your care in responding to all of these fans’ questions!
Please see Part 2 to this experiment where I test cornstarch among other things: https://handletheheat.com/2013/08/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-part-2.html
This is sheer mad genius! Why hasn’t someone done this before!!
I’ve never liked the way my chocolate chip cookies have turned out, never!!!
So glad you have the time to complete the testing, love it. Thank you for sharing!!!!
Let’s talk Gluten Free. I’m not a connoisseur of sweets so I don’t bake much but my daughter is strictly GF. Is the ratio of wheat flour to GF flour the same and do you recommend a specific brand that isn’t gritty?
Have you tried lowering the temp 5 degrees to get a chewier cookie?
Wondering about if you add the corn starch do you delete any flour? I loved reading every one’s comment. Loved this cookie post. Thank you 🙂
No, the cornstarch is simply in addition to the flour. Thanks!!
This is great. My go-to recipe has 3/4 c. Brown sugar and 3 T. White sugar and they’re SO good. But talking about the melted butter, Alton Brown from food network has a “chewy”, “puffy” & “crispy”. The chewy (my favorite) has melted butter, bread flour and is chilled. Yummy!
I usually make a double batch & refrigerate it. I bake only half a dozen cookies at a time since there are only two of us. It keeps for awhile. I prefer fresh baked to cookie jar. Interesting post! Thank you 🙂
Hi! I really loved your post…..but is it possible to make these cookies egg free. Any substitute for eggs, as my daughter is allergic to eggs.
Have you tried a control batch(es) with sugar substitutes.? My husband is diabetic so i need to use one he can have or I feel terribly guilty about making cookies..LOL
Hi madam.. im from the philippines.. ive been doing chocolate oatmeal cookies ..and it seem whatever I do theres still lacking something.. do you think you can help me how to tweak your recipe… I would appreciate it dearly.. tnks