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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:
These “Ultimate Guides” are wonderful! We used this one tonight for National Chocolate Chip Day.
Amazing! This post is very useful. But how about those cookies where you need a cookie cutter? I´ve tried two or three different recipes but I got hard cookies… what am I doing wrong? what can I do to make them more soft, like cookies we buy?
I’m on the hunt to make by cookies higher, thicker, and softer so I’m hoping extra flour and extra egg yolk will fix that problem. But how did the extra flour not make the cookies dry in the end? I’ve always heard that extra flour would make cookies drier, not softer. Was the extra flour much softer/ ooey-gooier or did some of them come out dry? Please reply! Thanks for the post.
Extra flour in somewhat small amounts will not make the baked cookies drier, it will make them much thicker though. Plus you’ll be adding some extra moisture in the form of the egg yolk. Also, the Nestle Tollhouse recipe is quite a wet dough anyways!
LOVE this article!! I will be fiddling with my chocolate recipe today. Thanks!
Thank you for this great post! It is so helpful!
I really like your blog! It is so great!
I would love if you could state the amount of the ingredients in grams!
Best wishes from Germany!
Ronja
I found your Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip cookies, most helpful. Tried two of the recipes on Sunday, with my family. Blogged about it on my blog. If you have time to stop by, I mentioned you and this guide. Thanks for sharing. Found you via, pinterest.
Jenny @
http://jennylynndesignz.blogspot.com/2015/01/sunday-cookies.html
Happy Creating, Baking and Cooking.
Very helpful post! Can’t thank you enough for taking the time. 😀
Both baking soda & baking powder and going to try the cornstarch tip. Everyone has been so helpful with their comments & tips……
Thanks for a great site
Can you sub table salt for the sea salt? If so, how much? Can’t wait to try these, I’m a big ccc fan!
Tessa I like potatoes
What happens if you use splenda sugar instead of granulated? Does it make therm cook differently or change the taste, color, texture?
Looking forward to trying different variations for a cookie party!