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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 love your post and refer to it often. Thank you for sharing it! Currently I’m making protein cookies for my fitness friends, which is quite challenging. (they’re always a bit cakey) I’m trying different techniques from your post. I’m looking forward to receiving your cookie customization guide. Cheers!
Thank you very much Tessa 🙂
Hi Tessa! I have a doubt, I am making cookies only with whole wheat flour and brown sugar because I want them more healthy. Normally I use eggs, baking soda, butter (creamed or melted) and chocolate chips or chunks as well but my cookies end up being like a cake (fluffy and with holes) I dislike them because to me cookies should be chewy, crispy, etc . How can I do to make the cookies look and taste like a real cookie? I have tried not using eggs and there was a difference but still I wonder if the eggs are the issue. Thank you for helping me! 🙂
Hi Karen! Try adding an egg yolk, the extra fat and protein creates a more chewy texture. Egg whites have the opposite effect, they create a more cakey texture. Have you downloaded my free cookie customization guide? I think you’ll find it helpful: https://handletheheat.com/cookie-customization-guide/
Hi! I used your first recipe, but realized about halfway through I didn’t have chocolate chips, so I used 3 tablespoons of hot fudge, and they came out beautiful! I’m sure they’re better with chocolate chips, but for people who’d like richer, chewy cookies, fudge works for chocolate chips.
Anyways thank you for posting this recipe! It was fun and easy to make!
Yum, Anna! Glad it all worked out 🙂
I remember years ago trying to avoid shortening and using an unsaturated oil instead, probably safflower. I remember that they spread out and were very tender, but quite tasty too. The chips stood up on top like like the recipe where you used all granulated sugar…Have you done any experiments with oil in the batter, or would you have any advice on that? I was trying to make a cookie without so much saturated fat I also used dark brown sugar since this is what I usually have in the house………..I really appreciate that you took such a scientific approach and did all this work…Thanks…From reading the comments, it looks like everyone loves chocolate chip cookies as must as I do!
No, I’ve only tried coconut oil! Which I believe is high in saturated fat? You can read about it in part 3: https://handletheheat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-part-3/
Hi, Tessa, thanks for this information, you know i just want to ask you if the weather will affect in baking these cookies, coz im living here in the Philippines and our weather here is humid and very hot… coz ive tried baking these cookies and i dont know what happened , they were hard.. even i followed the recipe itself….thanks and God bless!
Hi, Joy! Yes, climate can definitely affect your baked goods. Unfortunately I live in a very dry climate so while it’s very hot here, there’s almost no humidity so I have little personal experience with this. You might find the comments in this article helpful: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2006/01/humiditys_effect_on_baking_ing.html#.V072v74rI3g
The good and also appealing articles or blog posts keep me coming back here over and
over. thank you a lot.
Hi Tessa, yesterday I tried to bake brown-sugar cookies according to your recipe and they turned out just horribly! Frankly, I have no idea what might have gone wrong but my cookies look like some weird mushrooms. I was wondering if you could help me with this, maybe this happened to you too and you know what might have caused it. Thx very much for response
INSANE recipe!!! Best cookie recipe I’ve ever used!! Do the baking soda and baking powder variation!!!
Thank you for sharing!!!
Thank you so much! I have a recipe that uses 1/3 cup shortening and 1/3 cup softened butter. Have you tried using shortening before? They come out very nice. They seem to stay soft longer. I’ll try the 1/4 tsp each of soda and powder to see if I get even better results. They’re great they just aren’t the best ever.
I’m tried using 1/3+1/3 shortening/butter, 1/4+1/4 soda/powder and 3/4 cup brown sugar + 1/4 cup white sugar. They were excellent. A little puffy. They were puffy originally too. The temp on this recipe is 375° so I don’t know if that is why or not. I’ll try melted butter next time and see what happens.
Hi, Tessa!
I’m a new baker and I’m making a couple of cookie recipes and trying to sell them for a little bit of extra income. My husband and I have baby twins and I’m in school (plus I love to bake) so any bit helps!
Do you have any tips on storing cookies? I tested some chocolate chip cookies in an air tight container with a tortilla underneath parchment paper to keep moist but my cookies got a tad too moist.
I’m sure you’re super busy! Maybe you could respond when you have a chance.
Thank you!!
Gabby
These cookies look so good I want to eat them with my eyes … and my mouth!
Have a good day!