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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:
I made the base recipe in the ultimate guide (the downloadable one)… I followed the directions and made the balls and, while they were baking, the whole bunch became an enormous pizza, they splatted and sticked together. I’m so sad…
Hi! Thanks for your experiment! Have you swapped out the Semi-sweet for darker chocolate? I made cookies at my grandmother’s, using her Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, and the spread much less than what I make at home. I’m wondering if the darker chocolate activated the baking soda more?
This is a great guide. Thanks for posting it 🙂 What difference could you expect if you used half butter and half Crisco shortening instead of all butter? I’ve seen a recipe like that elsewhere and I wonder what kind of texture you could expect from that. My ideal chocolate chip cookie is one that it crisp outside and chew inside and not too much chocolate chips inside (some people put lots of large chips but I prefer less chips and smaller chips).
What you have done here is complety genious!!! The internet needed this!! Cookie bakers and lovers needed this!!
Thank you so much for this compilation of variating results!!!!
GENIOUS!!!
My cookie came out perfectly according to what i pictured them. thanks for the awesome guide.
I made choc chip cookies last night and they were cakey so I started searching and found this info. I like them flatter and with crispy edges so I tried the baking soda and powder recipe. Worked like a charm and it made the choc chip cookies I love. Thank you…thank you..thank you for this information,
What’s up every one, here every one is sharing these know-how, so it’s pleasant to read this weblog, and I
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I had cookies at my mom’s house and liked them. When I followed the same recipe she used, mine turned out flat and seemed greasy, while hers kept the shape better and were more cake like. I’ve made them twice with the same results. She eventually mentioned that she used unbleached flour. Next time I buy flour I will buy unbleached and see if that makes a difference. It might be a variation you want to add to your experiment.
I made your controlled recipe today using shortening instead of butter, baking soda and baking powder and also using all brown sugar. They are the best chocolate chip cookies i have ever made. I wish I could add a picture. Thanks!!!
These instructions were so informative and helpful. I made just made these and they were the best crispy cookies in the world. Here’s what I did:
1. Used only granulated sugar.
2. Used melted butter.
3. Used half baking soda and half baking powder.
I also baked them on a baking stone at 375 degrees for about 13 minutes. The best chocolate chip cookies!!!
im just wondering, doesn’t baking sode need something sour to react? it doesn’t seem to make the cookies raise; what purpose does it serve?
Hi! Thanks for this great post! I’m not quite seeing what I’m after though… Everyone else seems to be on the hunt for soft or chewy cookies but I want chunky, munchy, crumbly “crisp” cookies. That make a munchy sound when you bite into them… How can I achieve this? 🙂 xxx