Tessa Arias, Chef and Cookbook Author
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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.
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:
How can I think you for explaining the science of chocolate chip cookies?? I’ve never taken the time to remember or record how the cookies have turned out, but I know that my family has favorite versions. I just never knew why!
1000 thank yous!!
Great, thanks! I’m going to try the melted butter method then!
This is pretty cool! I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookies and this has been super helpful and interesting 😮 It looks like you know what you’re doing, I probably have less of an idea, but I’m studying to get better at it!
When you used the melted butter method…did you let the butter cool down before you added the sugar and waited for 5 mns. or did you add the sugar to the hot butter and then let it sit 5 mns. to let it cool? Those cookies look really intriguing, with their brownie-like tops 😮
The hot butter and sugar sat together for 5 minutes!
I sometimes take the mixing bowl off of the stand mixer base and stir the flour in by hand. I have heard that it keeps the cookies from flattening out so much. Anyone else ever heard that?
With the chilled dough, do you bring it back to room temp before handling or work with it chilled…? It’s August in Texas and “room temperature” with a warm oven can be in the mid-to-upper 80s, so maybe I should aim for a middle ground…?
I let the dough sit at room temperature just until it was warm enough to scoop and shape. In Texas summer that shouldn’t take very long at all! The colder the dough is, the less spread you will get.
I use the standard recipe with a variation a friend introduced to me. I switch out the white sugar for a package (regular size) of instant pudding. I started with Vanilla but have experienced with many others like cheesecake and butterscotch. People absolutely love them. You should give it a try.
Hello! When dough is in the fridge for 24-48 hours, did you shape and bake the cookies inmediatly? Or you wait for the dough were at room temperature? Thank you 😉
I let the dough sit at room temperature just until it was warm enough to scoop and shape. The colder the dough is, the less spread you will get.
To the person who inquired about using shortening–use half butter and half shortening. I think it’s wonderful and makes a noticeable difference in the texture…hth 🙂
Wow what a great post! I can totally appreciate your hardwork and diligence with this experiment. I’m an avid baker, and I love chocolate chip cookies, however it seems like every time I make them they turn out different. I know baking is a science, so changing just one thing, whether it be a measurement or omitting something, it can change the entire outcome. This is exactly what your post proves. Now, I have a better idea of what happens when my cookies turnout differently than I expect.
Thanks for sharing!
I hope this question was not already asked as I didn’t have/take the time to read them all. I saw once on Americas Test Kitchen, they caramelized the butter and sugar which would obviously increase the butterscotch flavor also. What might you recommend if one were to caramelize in a pan first but also want to chill for a day. Do think it would matter and would chilling change or effect what you did with the butter?
Both those techniques would definitely increase the butterscotch flavor!
I like to use CRISCO Butter shortening for my chocolate chip cookies. I loved the chart but must say with these old eyes I had a lot of trouble reading the comments ( font too small) and the Purple Font on the Purple Background.
Love the colors though.