Is eight dozen chocolate chip cookies too much? Asking for a friend. # 417: Chocolate Chip Cookie Comparison

The leaning tower of chocolate chip cookies, brought to you by eight different recipes, a ton of butter and a very long sugar-fueled baking day.

You know when that craving for a classic chocolate chip cookie hits? My ideal state is to be ready with a tried-and-true recipe with tasting notes included so I can avoid the usual dilemma of “wait is this the crispy one? or “is the one where I should bake it for less time than the recipe says?”

Chocolate chip cookies might seem basic but there are so many distinct profiles that fall into the “classic” category: thin, chewy, thick, decadent, nutty, soft, crispy, salty, etc. While I may be partial to a slight softer, underbaked beauty studded with dark chocolate, which one I reach for truly depends on my mood.

I’ve been unintentionally collecting different chocolate chip cookie recipes over the years and it’s finally time to do the side-by-side comparison of my dreams. Gotta weed out the less inspiring ones and clearly label the ones I want to keep! From the eight recipes that I had saved (all of which stated they were the MOST amazing, PERFECT cookie, of course), I ended with five that I’m going to keep:

• Bon Appetit’s “best” cookie: browned butter, thinner with a good chew and slightly crisp edges
• Baking Boss Babe‘s “world famous” cookie: thinner with a good texture and flavor (a slightly faster recipe for when I’m not in the mood to brown butter)
• Levain dupe from Modern Honey: thick, the perfect amount of underbaked but with a golden crisp bottom; seriously no notes
• Epicurious’s “best” bakery cookie: indulgently thick texture, more toasty / caramelized than the Levain dupe (dare I say these will be my go-to overall?)
• Sarah Kieffer’s pan-banging cookies: slightly gimmicky but so fun! enormous, great flavor

The most elaborate mise en place I’ve ever done, testing the limits of my bowl and ramekin collection. The only thing that kept Nate sane at the sight of this many dishes was the promise of an avalanche of warm cookies.

I used a mixture of bittersweet chocolate chips and chopped dark chocolate. Nothing makes me feel more like a badass than demolishing a few of the Trader Joe’s pound chocolate bars. Casual.

Most of the recipes called for room temperature butter, though a few went with melted butter, paired with plenty of chilling time in the fridge.

Our one brown butter friend got to feel special with a whole extra recipe step. Maybe some day I’ll be one of those bakers that batch makes brown butter and freezes it in tablespoon increments for each portioning.

The two recipes that called for bread flour (high protein content, more gluten) turned out a chewier cookie, and the two that added corn starch in place of some of the all-purpose flour had an easier bite and had a more cake-y texture. Science!

The secret to tracking 8 doughs (each with unique chilling and baking times and temperatures) is painters’ tape. Each recipe got reduced to a word or phrase that got slapped on pans, bowls and cooling racks with a tape label. The look of each cookie turned out pretty distinct (after staring at them for most of a day) but the labels offered the confirmation which my baby brain needs right now.

I love how differently they all turned out! Part of me wondered if they would all be too similar to distinguish but NOPE. We got toasty bbs cozying up with cracked full moons, cake-y pillows and giant crispy discs.

The pan-banging ones were the only recipe that called out how to line the pan: foil instead of parchment paper! Look at those ripples – I’m obsessed.

I prepped a blind taste test for Nate and I have to say he aced it! Round of applause for correctly identifying recipes that I had been jabbering on about all day.

A mini edible solar system.

Happy munching!