Searching for Something To Love: The Perfect Cookie Recipe

I have a chocolate chip cookie problem. I have been on a quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I have tried many.  I think the answer is…it’s personal.  What may be the perfect cookie for me may not be for you.  Let us not forget there is the soft & chewy vs. thin & crispy controversy.

After baking a gazillion cookie recipes, I think the determining factors are flour, salt and butter.  I seem to gravitate toward salty, buttery cookies. I have also learned that appearance may be deceiving.  I have made some cookies that look mouth watering. They may not be the tastiest but the site of them, all bumpy, cracked in all the right places, and gooey, triggers a Pavlovian effect.  In that case, who cares about the taste?  Bite in and be visually satisfied.

Another personal issue is the chip to dough ratio. WHOA this is a major one! If you are like me, I put half the amount of chocolate chips in my cookies. It’s all about the dough with a sparing surprise bite of chocolate. I don’t want that chocolate overwhelming my cookie. I also think nuts actually disturb the cookie. In my cookie, nuts are unnecessary and complicate things.  Some people load up their cookies with “stuff.” This is a hotly contested issue. So many variations.So little time to eat them all.

I do have some advice. Whatever the chocolate chip cookie recipe, using high quality vanilla and chocolate (I've been told that French chocolate is divine) makes a big difference in the end product.

Chocolate chip cookie issues to consider:

soft & chewy vs. thin & crispy
brown sugar vs. granulated sugar 
butter vs. Crisco
salted butter vs. unsalted butter
chocolate chips vs. chocolate chunks
(if you are a minimalist like me, small chips used sparingly)
chip to dough ratio
nuts
other inclusions/disruptions

Any ideas on the perfect cookie? Please share your favorites