While I try to eat a healthy, balanced diet most of the time, my one weakness is chocolate chip cookies. One of my favorite hobbies is baking and while peanut butter kisses and snickerdoodles are just as tasty, the classic chocolate chip cookie holds a special place in my heart. I’ve baked countless batches of these cookies, but never found the perfect texture that I’ve always wanted, until last weekend. The “perfect” cookie is subjective. For example, my roommate prefers thin and crispy cookies, whereas I was on the hunt for a thick, softer cookie that is slightly crispy on the outer edges. While scavenging for a new recipe to try, I came across the Ultimate Cookie Troubleshooting Guide which explains how to manipulate the basic ingredients in a standard recipe to result in your perfect cookie.
Photo Credit: Sally McKenney / sallysbakingaddiction.com
To start with, let’s discuss the butter. From the website mentioned above and my new favorite recipe of all time, I’ve learned that the temperature of the butter plays an important part in the thickness of the cookie. When you place cookie dough into the oven, the heat melts the butter which starts spreading the cookie out. If you use melted butter, the dough is already warm so heating up the dough will cause the cookie to spread further and become slightly thinner. However, cold chunks of butter cause a thick, cake-like consistency because when the water in the butter turns into gas, it leaves behind larger air pockets in the cookie. I’ve found that softened, room temperature butter is best when you mix the dough, but the key is to chill the dough for 24 hours. By chilling the dough, you are chilling the butter which is going to result in a softer, thicker cookie without compromising the crisp, which you wouldn’t get if you just used chunks of cold butter.
Usually, I evenly split the amount of granulated sugar and brown sugar. But by using more brown sugar, specifically dark brown sugar, you increase the chewiness of your cookie. The taste is also richer as the brown sugar caramelizes when the sugars break down. The caramelization creates “a brown, fragrant liquid that’s overflowing with aromas and tastes” (Doucleff, Cookie-Baking Chemistry: How To Engineer Your Perfect Sweet Treat). Next, you can add more flour to make the dough thicker, which results in a thicker cookie as well. According to Sally of Sally’s Baking Addiction, the secret to her recipe is the addition of cornstarch, which helps the cookie rise more. Perhaps the second most useful tip I’ve gathered, besides chilling the dough, was to form the dough into taller, cylindrical shapes as opposed to a ball shape that I normally use. Because the dough is skinnier and taller, when the butter melts in the oven, the cookie spreads less.
With all these tips, I’ve learned how to make my perfect cookie, and if you’re looking for some new cookie recipes to try I highly recommend Sally’s Baking Addiction!
Photo Credit: Tessa Arias / HandleTheHeat.com
Other sources:
Cookie-Baking Chemistry: How To Engineer Your Perfect Sweet Treat
You have no idea how much this has helped me! I feel like I can never make a constant cookie. I seem to always do something differently that makes them taste and look different. I tried guessing what the problem was but I could never put my finger right on the problem. Thinking now about the butter temperature makes sense! Now I know that I can’t be lazy and just melt the butter to make mixing easier for myself! It’s interesting to know that the different types of sugar also play a role. I always use granulated sugar and now I am interested to see what and all dark brown sugar cookie would taste like. Thank you for answering the question I have posed since I started baking!
Hi,
I loved reading your post because who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies? I’m really glad you added the visual components because they allowed for me to clearly see the effects that each ingredient has on the cookie. I also didn’t realize how many different ingredients could be used in the baking of the chocolate chip cookie and that by manipulating them you could alter the cookie in a completely different way. I think that’s so great that someone can mix together whatever ingredients they love most to make the perfect cookie. I’ll definitely need to keep up on more research and refer to the articles you mentioned next time I want to bake rather than referring to recipes.
Hello!
Just like yourself I very much enjoy a heavy cookie with a chewy texture and an abundance of chocolate chips. I could almost say I am addicted to chocolate chip cookies…
Luckily chocolate chip cookies won’t cause me lung cancer as does smoking (from class), but these cookies definitely do correlate with my happiness. Are chocolate chip cookies the only reason I’m happy? Thankfully not, as my happiness constitutes from other facets of life. However, it does come to show that correlation does not equate to causation.
There is a place right here on college avenue called Isomnia Cookies that has some pretty awesome cookies. You should check it out!