For his birthday celebration, my college roommate requested that we congregate on Zoom for a PowerPoint party and share 5-minute presentations on any topic. Concurrently, I was comparing many popular chocolate chip cookie recipes to find out what aspects these bakers all consider important. Thus, I took the opportunity to combine the projects, scripting a dense half-silly rapid-fire 38-slide 5-minute presentation on cookie baking science. Here, I’ve reformatted that presentation’s tables and script into this blog post.
If interested in the recipe I currently follow, scroll to the end.
Learning from Differences in Recipes
“Today, we’ll be discussing chocolate chip cookies. As a starting point, we’ll use the original Nestle Toll House recipe, allegedly written by the inventor of the concept of chocolate chip cookies, Ruth Graves Wakefield, in 1938. The recipe calls for creaming together butter with white and brown sugars, whisking in vanilla and eggs, gently folding in flour, baking soda, and salt, adding chocolate and nuts, and then baking on sheet trays.
Original Nestlé® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Nestlé® Toll House® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
- 1 cup chopped nuts, if omitting, add 1 to 2 Tbsp. of all-purpose four
Preheat oven to 375°F
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
Beat in flour mixture gradually
Stir in morsels and nuts
Drop onto ungreased baking sheets by rounded tablespoon
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes about 5 dozen cookies
Comparison Panel
We can learn what factors are important in making cookies by looking at similarities with other recipes, thus, this will be our panel of comparison recipes:
- Renowned cookie baker Dorie Greenspan, from Baking: From My Home to Yours (2006)
- the one and only Ina Garten, a.k.a. Barefoot Contessa, from Barefoot Contessa Parties! (2001)
- chocolatier Jacques Torres, as written in New York Times Cooking, July 2008
- food scientist J. Kenji López-Alt, from Serious Eats’ Food Lab, December 2013
- Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen Director Chris Morocco, posted April 2019
- and international hotel chain DoubleTree Hilton, which dispenses cookies to guests as they check in. They published their recipe online April 2020.
A few recipes of are different sizes, but I’ve normalized them for some tables. That is, Jacques Torres’s recipe, using 2.5 sticks of butter, is scaled back by a factor of 0.8. Chris Morocco, who uses 1.5 sticks of butter, as scaled up by a factor of 1.33. DoubleTree, which adds bulk with oats, is scaled back by a factor of 0.75.
Comparing Ingredients
Let us proceed ingredient by ingredient.
Sugars and Butter
For the sugars, most recipes specify light brown sugar, which has around 3% molasses content, compared to around 6% molasses in dark brown sugar. Some tweak the ratio between brown and white sugars, though none omit white sugar altogether, as its pure crystalline structure is important while creaming together butter and sugar, which mechanically introduces the implied ingredient of air.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Sugars |
| Toll House | 3/4 cup white, 3/4 cup “brown” | |
| D. Greenspan | − | 1 cup white, 2/3 cup light brown |
| B. Contessa | + | 1/2 cup white, 1 cup light brown |
| J. Torres, NYT* | + | ~3/4 cup white, 1 cup light brown |
| Kenji, Food Lab | * | 3/4 cup white, 2/3 cup dark brown |
| C. Morocco, BA* | + * | 1/3 cup white, 4/3 cup dark brown |
| DoubleTree | 3/4 cup white, 3/4 cup light brown |
The two recipes calling for dark brown sugar, Kenji and Chris Morocco, also share the next interesting tweak: browning the butter. Pre-cooking butter caramelizes the milkfat contained in butter, accentuating its nutty flavor. To bring the butter back to working temperature, Chris cools the butter with more butter, while Kenji replaces the boiled-off water content of butter with ice.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Butter |
| Toll House | 2 sticks | |
| D. Greenspan | 2 sticks | |
| B. Contessa | 2 sticks | |
| J. Torres, NYT | + | 2.5 sticks |
| Kenji, Food Lab | * | 2 sticks, browned 2 tbsp. ice |
| C. Morocco, BA | * | 1 stick, browned 1/2 stick |
| DoubleTree | 2 sticks |
Eggs and Vanilla
Chris Morocco abandons the natural yolk-to-white ratio by adding additional egg yolks, where the extra protein makes a fudgier cookie texture.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Eggs |
| Toll House | 2 eggs | |
| D. Greenspan | 2 eggs | |
| B. Contessa | 2 extra-large eggs, room temp | |
| J. Torres, NYT | 2 eggs | |
| Kenji, Food Lab | 2 eggs | |
| C. Morocco, BA | * | 1 egg 2 egg yolks |
| DoubleTree | 2 eggs |
All the recipes add vanilla extract, which is mostly the flavor compounds found in vanilla beans suspended in a water-alcohol mixture. DoubleTree adds some cinnamon and lemon juice, which are interesting choices. (So in the original presentation, I crack a joke about Barefoot Conteesa’s propensity for touting her “good” vanilla but in actuality she calls for pure vanilla extract, not unlike the other recipes.)
| Recipe | Change | Amount Spices |
| Toll House | 1 tsp vanilla | |
| D. Greenspan | 2 tsp vanilla | |
| B. Contessa | 2 tsp vanilla | |
| J. Torres, NYT | 2 tsp vanilla | |
| Kenji, Food Lab | 2 tsp vanilla | |
| C. Morocco, BA | 2 tsp vanilla | |
| DoubleTree | + | 1 1/4 tsp vanilla Pinch cinnamon, 1/4 tsp lemon juice |
Dry Ingredients
Lemon juice interacts with the baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, which contributes chemical leavening when it reacts with acidic ingredients, which in cookies is the molasses of brown sugar. Meanwhile, chocolatier Jacques Torres adds baking powder, which is a mixture of baking soda and powderized acid, possibly superfluous when there’s sufficient brown sugar.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Baking Soda |
| Toll House | 1 tsp baking soda | |
| D. Greenspan | − | 3/4 tsp |
| B. Contessa | 1 tsp | |
| J. Torres, NYT | + | 1 1/4 tsp 1 1/2 tsp baking powder |
| Kenji, Food Lab | − | 3/4 tsp |
| C. Morocco, BA | − | 3/4 tsp |
| DoubleTree | 1 tsp |
Jacques possibly also overcomplicates the flour. The other bakers use all-purpose flour with a typical gluten content of about 11%, whereas he uses a mixture of 8% cake flour and 14% bread flour, which averages to 11%.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Flour |
| Toll House | + | 2 1/4 cups AP flour |
| D. Greenspan | 2 cups | |
| B. Contessa | 2 cups | |
| J. Torres, NYT | * | 1.875 cups cake flour 1.667 cups bread flour |
| Kenji, Food Lab | ~2 cups (10 oz) | |
| C. Morocco, BA* | 2 cups | |
| DoubleTree* | + | 2 1/4 cups |
For the salt, Barefoot Contessa specifies kosher salt, which actually means using less salt. Kosher salt has larger grains than table salt, therefore about 30% lower density. Meanwhile, Jacques and Kenji add a sea salt garnish because they fancy.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Salt |
| Toll House | 1 tsp salt | |
| D. Greenspan | 1 tsp salt | |
| B. Contessa | − | 1 tsp kosher salt |
| J. Torres, NYT | * | 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt Finishing sea salt |
| Kenji, Food Lab | + * | 2 tsp kosher salt Coarse sea salt, for garnish |
| C. Morocco, BA | 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt | |
| DoubleTree | 1 tsp salt |
Mix-Ins
Half the bakers omit nuts. DoubleTree adds some oats. (I had nothing interesting to say here, and also presenting 38 slides in 5 minutes is tough)
| Recipe | Change | Amount Nuts |
| Toll House | 1 cup chopped nuts | |
| D. Greenspan | 1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans | |
| B. Contessa | + | 1 1/2 cup chopped walnuts |
| J. Torres, NYT | − | None |
| Kenji, Food Lab | − | None |
| C. Morocco, BA | − | None |
| DoubleTree | + | 1 3/4 cup walnuts. 1/2 cup oats |
Finally, the chocolate. Jacques uses his own branded disks, which are half an inch in diameter compared to the quarter inch of Tollhouse chocolate chips. Half the bakers achieve a more modern look and varied texture by hand-chopping chocolate bars, which disperses fine chocolate dust into the dough and makes smaller chocolate shards alongside larger chunks. The Barefoot Contessa goes HAM on the chocolate, adding far more than anyone else.
As an aside, bittersweet and semisweet are essentially interchangeable terms, both representing 50-60% cacao solids.
| Recipe | Change | Amount Chocolate |
| Toll House | 12 oz semisweet chips | |
| D. Greenspan | * | 12 oz bittersweet bar, chopped |
| B. Contessa | ++ | 20 oz semisweet chunks |
| J. Torres, NYT* | * + | 16 oz bittersweet disks |
| Kenji, Food Lab | * – | 8 oz semisweet bar, chopped |
| C. Morocco, BA* | * – | 8 oz bittersweet bar, chopped |
| DoubleTree* | 12 oz semisweet chips |
Comparing Techniques
(The presentation largely concluded when I talked about chocolate; some of the below comments about techniques were melded into the presentation when the above ingredients were mentioned, but for this post I’ve split it.)
Creaming
Creaming butter and sugar mechanically introduces air into a stabilized structure. Crystalline white granulated sugar is optimal for creaming for complicated physical reasons. Brown sugar is slightly inferior because the inclusion of molasses makes the sugar granules more hygroscopic for reasons I don’t entirely understand (but which Serious Eats explores in depth).
Melted butter can’t hold onto air and deflates cookies. Chilled butter straight out of the fridge is unworkable by hand and actually risks damaging mixers with inferior structural integrity. Melted butter is liquid and cannot hold onto air when creamed, resulting in deflated chewy cookies. Fortunately, butter’s optimal temperature for creaming is room temperature.
Adding eggs
For the eggs, every recipe specifies adding them slowly, ensuring proper emulsification of the egg’s water content with the butter’s fat.
Author’s note: Well… not every recipe. Kenji actually creams the white sugar and eggs (as opposed to butter) which is a procedural deviation that I chose not to explore in the presentation. And not Chris who only has one egg. And not DoubleTree, because I don’t know why.
Folding
It’s important to mix the wet and dry ingredients gently, otherwise known as folding, to avoid over-agitating the hydrated flour, forming a strong gluten network, and making a tough cookie.
| Recipe | Baking Instructions |
| Toll House | “Beat in flour mixture gradually” |
| D. Greenspan | “Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated.” |
| B. Contessa | “…add to the butter with the mixer on low speed, mixing only until combined.” |
| J. Torres, NYT | “Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds.” |
| Kenji, Food Lab | “Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until just barely combined, with some dry flour still remaining, about 15 seconds.” |
| C. Morocco, BA | “Using rubber spatula, fold reserved dry ingredients into butter mixture just until no dry spots remain” |
| DoubleTree | “With mixer on low speed, add flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, blending for about 45 seconds. Don’t overmix.” |
Baking Preparation
Kenji and Jacques rest the dough at least overnight to mature the flavor, which makes baking cookies a true test of patience. Dough can be frozen at this stage, good for fresh cookies anytime.
| Recipe | Baking Instructions |
| Toll House | None. |
| D. Greenspan | Can freeze, adding a few minutes to baking time. |
| B. Contessa | Flatten on tray slightly. |
| J. Torres, NYT | Refrigerate dough for 24–36 hours. |
| Kenji, Food Lab | Refrigerate dough for 12–72 hours. |
| C. Morocco, BA | Let rest for 5–10 minutes, until scoops hold shape. |
| DoubleTree | Can freeze unbaked cookies; no need to thaw. |
Baking
Each recipe has a uniquely calibrated baking temperature and time. As the butter melts in the dough balls, more dough comes in contact with the hot metal sheet tray, which caramelizes and sets the sugars in the base, arresting lateral spread and forcing the thicker center to cook by ambient oven air only, which has a lower heat conductivity. Hence, a crisp edge and soft interior.
| Recipe | Baking Instructions |
| Toll House | Rounded tablespoon 375°F for 9–11 minutes |
| D. Greenspan | Slightly rounded tablespoonfuls 375°F for 10–12 minutes |
| B. Contessa | 1 3/4 inch diameter ice cream scoop 350°F for exactly 15 minutes |
| J. Torres, NYT | 3 1/2 oz mounds of dough 350°F for 18–20 minutes |
| Kenji, Food Lab | 1 oz ice cream scoop 325°F for 13–16 minutes |
| C. Morocco, BA | 1 1/2 oz scoop (3 tbsp.) 375°F for 8–10 minutes |
| DoubleTree | Scoop (about 3 tbsp.) 300°F for 20–23 minutes |
There are many factors to balance while optimize cookie baking. For instance, some common pitfalls:
Cookie Pitfalls
- Cold butter when creaming: Trying to cream fridge-temperature butter by hand results in clumps of cold butter and an uneven cookie.
- Solution: Take butter out of the fridge at least an hour in advance. To speed up, consider cutting up butter and spreading over a metal mixing bowl (large surface area contact with material with high heat conductivity) or placing in a bag and smashing with a rolling pin (introduce heat via friction, increasing surface area) or heating over water bath.
- Melted butter when creaming: Liquid butter struggles to hold air, resulting in dense cookies.
- Solution: don’t melt your butter. Cool your brown butter adequately.
- Overmixing dry ingredients: This creates strong gluten network in hydrated flour.
- Solution: mixing gently. I know I use the term “folding” imprecisely when referring to dry ingredients, but I use the same technique. Youtube it; proper folding technique is essential for baking at large.
- Warm dough before baking: At its extreme, baking soft dough with pre-melted butter makes a flat and greasy cookie.
- Solution: Resting dough in the fridge before baking for even just a few minutes helps flavor for some reason anyway. This also standardizes starting temperature to about 34°F.
- Prematurely removing baked cookies: Rushing cookies risks disintegrating cookies and burnt tongues.
- Solution: wait 2-5 minutes, as prescribed. Properly baked cookies are soft straight out of the oven before the bases fully solidify by the sheet trays’ residual heat. Also, don’t be scared by domed cookie contours; they flatten in these few minutes.
Personal Protocol
Personally, I make Kenji’s recipe in half-batches. (Author’s note: in the presentation I summarized my protocol in prose. Instead, here’s the procedure that I follow to make the Serious Eats cookies one stick of a butter at a time, with three bowls, a balloon whisk, a rubber spatula, and volume-only measurements. My Asian rice cooker measuring cup is a 3/4-cup cup with quarter increments, making 3/8 cup measurements easy.)
(For reference, I use brand-agnostic AP flour, Domino sugars, Diamond Crystal Kosher salt, and otherwise Trader Joe’s ingredients. A batch, which makes 14 cookies, costs me approximately $2.98-$3.36 as of 2020, with most of the variation coming from the price of eggs.)
Kenji’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
- One to three days prior to cookie day: Brown 1 stick butter, swirling constantly over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. When milk solids are browned, add to 1 tbsp ice water (a standard ice cube), and chill until the edges begin to solidify, about 8 minutes in the freezer.
- Separately, cream 1 egg, 3/8 cup sugar (5 oz, 140 g), 1/2 tsp vanilla extract until very light.
- Combine creamed mixture with cooled butter and 3/8 cup dark brown sugar (5 oz, 140 g).
- Separately, combine 1 cup AP flour (10 oz, 280 g), 1/2 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp kosher salt. Fold into mixture gently by thirds, pausing halfway through the last addition.
- Separately, chop 4 oz semisweet chocolate (125 g, e.g. a quarter of TJ’s Dark Chocolate By the Pound) into chunks quarter-inch at largest, resulting in smaller shards and chocolate dust as well. Fold in along with the last third of dry ingredients. Don’t overmix.
- Divide into 14-16 roughly-torn balls, laid out in smashed-together single-layered sheets. Leaving in the fridge for 30-60 minutes first helps with bring dough to optimal stiffness for partitioning. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 12-72 hours. Freeze leftover dough after 3 days.
- Baking day(s): preheat oven to 325°F. Arrange dough balls, straight from the fridge, 2 inches apart on sheet trays and bake until edges are golden brown, 14-16 minutes. If baking multiple sheets simultaneously, swap sheet positions and rotate orientations halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. If baking from frozen, add about 2 minutes baking time.
- Immediately sprinkle with sea salt flakes. Let cool for 2-5 minutes on the sheet tray, then transfer off. The cookies are best shared within the hour.
And that’s a brief overview of chocolate chip cookies. Hope that was fun. Thanks.
References
- A bag of Nestlé® Toll House® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
- Dorie Greenspan’s “My Classic Best Chocolate Chip Cookies” on Food52 https://food52.com/recipes/64535-my-classic-best-chocolate-chip-cookies
- Chocolate Chunk Cookies | Barefood Contessa https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/chocolate-chunk-cookies
- Jacques Torres’ “Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe” on NYT Cooking https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015819-chocolate-chip-cookies
- The Food Lab’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe | Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/12/the-food-lab-best-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe.html
- Much of what I know about cookies is from this thesis on cookies by Kenji: https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
- BA’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe | Bon Appetit https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-chocolate-chip-cookies
- Watch Chris make his cookies, it’s amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lp_x27_RI
- Doubletree Reveals Cookie Recipe | Hilton Press Center https://newsroom.hilton.com/static-doubletree-reveals-cookie-recipe.htm
1/20/23: updated main recipe regarding layout of dough balls