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
