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CLICK HERE FOR PARTS ONE, TWO, and THREE!!

I’m doing a happy dance because today I’m sharing PART FOUR of my Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookie series. I’ve received a lot of questions and comments about specific baking techniques and products and how they affect chocolate chip cookies. You guys wanted to know how oven temperature, creaming duration, baking surface, and baking pans affect cookies. Some people swear by certain techniques, while others unknowingly have problems with various products and methods. The below experimental batches will hopefully help you in troubleshooting why your cookies end up a certain way, whether that be flat, burned, underbaked, crisp, chewy, or whatever else!
I used an *adapted* version of the Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe as my control and made small variations among the baking methods and techniques to show you how they affect the cookie. I kept everything else the same in each recipe test so we could observe the differences in the finished cookie, photographing all the results for you. Together we’re on a journey to discover exactly how baking recipes work. See the comparison photos at the end of this post. Hopefully this will help you to discover why your cookies turn out the way they do and how to make YOUR version of the ultimate chocolate chip cookie!

Free Cookie Customization Guide!
The science-based guide so you can bake perfect cookies every time!
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

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 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Silpat:
I received a few questions in my first Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies post about the affects of using parchment paper vs. a Silpat nonstick baking mat. Silpats are reusable non-stick baking mats often used in professional kitchens. I love my Silpats and have been baking with them for almost exclusively for so long that I never stopped to think how it might be affecting my baking products. I’ve heard some people claim their baked goods don’t become as browned and caramelized when using a Silpat, so I wanted to see if I experienced the same result in a side-by-side comparison with the control batch baked on standard parchment paper. The differences between the two batches were negligible, if anything the Silpat batch was slightly darker on the bottom and taller with a little less spread. I find these to be pleasant outcomes, so I will absolutely continue using my Silpat!

5 Minute Creaming:
This is something I think many people don’t pay attention to when baking cookies. In all my Ultimate Guide posts about chocolate chip cookies, my control recipe called for a specific 2 minutes of creaming. I counted those minutes exactly with a timer to ensure consistency and accuracy. I get a lot of questions from readers about cookies spreading too much in the oven. While many things can cause this, such as butter and/or dough that is too warm, overmixing butter can also lead to similar results.
The purpose for creaming the butter and sugar in a cookie recipe is to dissolve the sugar into the butter in a sense so the dough is homogeneous and bakes evenly. It also incorporates millions of tiny air bubbles into the batter, which in partnership with the leavener (baking soda in this case) helps to create a more airy, lifted texture. This is CRUCIAL when baking cake recipes which are intended to turn a dense batter into an ultra soft, tender, light, airy, and tall cake. Over-beating the butter in a cookie recipe, however, can cause the butter to warm too much and weaken its ability to hold air. Cookies just can’t become super tall and structured, so if the butter and sugar are over-beaten, it tends to spread and fall flat. I almost always call for 2 to 3 minutes of creaming time in an electric mixer on medium-high speed, this is usually enough time to homogenize the dough without risking over-beating. In this test batch I creamed for exactly 5 minutes, an amount of time I felt might be easy for many home bakers to overreach and overcream without realizing. I wanted to see if this was enough creaming to negatively impact the cookies. The impact wasn’t huge, creaming longer would definitely exaggerate things. However these cookies were certainly more pale, flat, soft, and light. They were also more misshapen, as though the butter was warm enough to melt out into whichever direction it wanted.

Stoneware:
I have received some comments from folks saying that they prefer to bake their cookies on stoneware. This made sense to me, as stoneware often heats more evenly than many metal baking sheets. I dropped the cookie dough onto parchment on my favorite Emile Henry baking stone which I use religiously for pizza. The stone was at room temperature and I placed it in a 350°F oven. I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was it was not good. The cookies turned into flat puddles with absolutely NO browning. They were completely under-baked, soft, and thin. They basically looked and tasted like melted cookie dough, not baked cookies. They were almost impossible to remove from the stone without having them fall apart. I was fairly shocked. I actually don’t think the tragedy behind these cookies is fully illustrated in the photos. If anything, I feared these cookies would be too brown. I don’t know if it was the dough recipe, the Tollhouse adaption is quite a wet dough, or if it was because I didn’t preheat the stone. Whatever it was I think I’ll avoid using stoneware for cookies altogether. They’re also more of a pain to lug out and to clean. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on stoneware! Maybe I just used the wrong product or method. Either way, I thought the results might be useful or interesting to some of you.

375°F Baking Temperature
The original Nestle Tollhouse recipe is baked at 375°F. For all my Ultimate Guide experiments I switched the oven temperature to a more typical 350°F as my intention was to test out variations on the most average control cookie recipe. A few readers have pointed out this change in temperature, so I set out to test why the Tollhouse recipe would originally call for a higher baking temperature. I closely monitored my oven with an oven thermometer and once it reached 375°F I baked off a batch for exactly 10 minutes, like every other batch. A relatively small variance in temperature resulted in very different cookies. These chocolate chip cookies were much darker with a more crisp, crunchy texture. There was no ooey-gooey center whatsoever, however they did have a lovely depth of caramel-y flavor. I did enjoy these cookies, and I think I’ll bake off cookies at 375°F whenever I’m in the mood for that crisp texture.

325°F Baking Temperature
On the flip side, I wanted to test out how dropping the oven temperature from 350°F might affect the cookies. Dropping the temperature didn’t produce as different of results as raising the temperature. These cookies were slightly softer with a chewy bite. The one thing they were noticeably lacking was that wonderful butterscotch, caramel-y flavor that chocolate chip cookies usually have. I don’t see why I’d use a lowered baking temperature again with chocolate chip cookies.

Air Baking Sheet
Another product that people seem to swear by are air baking sheets, baking sheets that are insulated and meant to prevent over-browning or burning. These cookies were flatter, perfectly round, with crisp edges. Unsurprisingly, the bottoms were not as brown as with the control recipe. I baked these for 10 minutes like I baked every other batch, but these cookies could have used another minute or two. I actually prefer more crisp, browned, caramelized cookies so I don’t think I’ll use insulate/airbake sheets in the future.
Final Comparison:

*If you use these images PLEASE give proper credit to me and link back to this post.*
All Four Guides in Comparison:

CLICK HERE FOR PARTS ONE, TWO, and THREE!!
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Wow! What a ton of work you put into all of this! Something that I saw in another recipe that I came across on Pinterest was the addition of powdered sugar to the recipe. The recipe had 1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar, 6 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar, and 2 Tablespoons of Powdered sugar…and this cookie seemed to have a crackled top revealing almost a gooey center…very similar looking to the Paradise Bakery Cookie…it would be really fun to see the results of that sometime! Do you have any thoughts on this at all?
This has been so informative! I just got done baking a full batch with 2 sticks of unsalted butter at 375 degrees – and they spread too much. I even added 2 tbsp. extra flour. They’re soft and chewy but i want light and fluffy. I’ve used butter flavored Crisco in the past (but was out today) – this has its own issues – too crispy unless I add some extra tbsps. of water. Next time I’ll try less white sugar and no baking soda. Thanks so much for all the work you put into this research – i imagine you’re quite tired of chocolate chip cookies for now!
I can tell you why the stoneware one didn’t cook properly – thermal conductivity. The stoneware has a high conductivity to the dough. This means that the bottom of the dough will stay at the temp of the stoneware. Since the stoneware was at room temperature it acted like an insulator from the heat on the bottom. Air has low conductivity, so the air takes a longer time to transfer the heat to the cookies. That is why the cookies basically cooked from the top and the bottom didn’t brown up. If you preheated the stoneware the opposite would happen. The bottom would brown up first while the top was still uncooked. That’s why I use thin nonstick cookie sheets. They heat up very quickly and give a nice brown underside to the cookies.
This 4-part series was insanely helpful – thank you! Been wanting cookies to be puffier and softer but didn’t have much idea what to try other than more flour. Will switch to bread flour and all brown sugar and see how it goes.
Add in a teaspoon or two of cornstarch as well!
I use stoneware exclusively for all of my baking. It just works better. I do not use anything extra and cleaning is never more complicated than wiping it down and rinsing it off. I’ve never had food stick or cookies look like the results you had with using the parchment. One tip when doing multiple batches of cookies, use more than one stone. That way the stone you just removed from the oven has time to cool before being reloaded with food to go back in the oven. I use Pampered Chef stoneware because they are easy to find in multiple sizes and shapes and reasonably priced. Do try it again without the paper, just the food on a well seasoned stone. You won’t regret it.
Loved you cookie r&d articles, and in agreement with the rest if the universe, I’m so happy someone finally did this! I tried out the baking soda / baking powder cookie (Part 1) and I’m treasuring that recipe till death! I have a question: after having read Part 4, I realized I did a total of 9-10min of creaming the butter & sugars. But I baked the cookies 24 hours after, and I thought they were great, if not a bit airy. Does the 24 hour wait affect the airiness of over beating at all?
Thank you! Interesting question. I’d venture to guess that the wait does reduce the affect of creaming, I’m sure the air bubbles created dissipate to some extent. Not to mention the affect of the leaveners is slightly diminished through chilling.
Which recipe would be the best soft chewy chocolate cookie recipe?
I have a recipe for Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies here: https://handletheheat.com/soft-batch-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Wow! Great information! Any advice or experience if using white chocolate and macadamia nuts instead of nestle chips? Just wondering if/how much differences in chocolate types or brands or other additions such as nuts affect outcome?
Thanks Carolyn! You can use any type of nuts or chips you’d like as long as the pieces are about the same size as a chocolate chip and you use the same amount of cups called for in the recipe. I do think the type of chocolate and brand does have a small affect on the outcome – quality ingredients will always taste better!
Great post! Maybe you can help me figure out a mystery. Long time ago, my mom made a batch of chocolate cookies using the recipe on the back of the bag. She forgot an ingredient. We ended up with buttery flat cookies.They spread so much that they completely covered the metal cookie sheet. Difficult to handle, but very good. Any idea what she could have forgotten? I think she said something about salt or baking soda. Thanks for your time!
Sounds like the baking soda was left out, that would have helped leaven the cookies and give them lift and structure! Also, if the butter and/or dough is too warm or too wet (not enough flour) that can cause the cookies to spread more.
great post! Thanks for doing all the experimenting for me!! One thing that I’ve learned the hard way is to use Baking Soda that is FRESH! If I can’t remember the last time I bought any, then I know it’s time to buy some fresh. NO PULLING FROM THE REFRIGERATOR! Fresh baking soda makes a huge difference!
Nice experimenting! Alton Brown has a Good Eats episode from way back on CC cookies. He starts with the Toll House Recipe ang goes through the changes needed to do cakey, chewy, and crispy versions – kind of flour, kind of fat, temp, etc. and why. I think you’d like it:-). Here’s the YouTube chewy excerpt http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RUkYhPM2Yns
I was wondering if you’ve experimented at all with nonstick cookie sheets WITHOUT a Silpat mat or parchment paper. Right now I’m using this one without anything on it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FN9V6G/ref=oh_details_o03_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1, and my cookies seem to come out fine…most of the time (any problems were probably due to technical issues on my part), and they practically slide right off of the sheet. If it’s already nonstick, is there any reason to use either a Silpat mat or parchment paper in terms of how the cookies will turn out?
Thanks for all your tips! They’ve been very helpful.