Our quest thus began with a facebook post and many, many friends sharing their favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes with us... all claiming to be the one and only chocolate chip cookie recipe you'll ever need. Some recipes came pried from their grandmother's dying fingers while others were found on the back of a flour bag. After a few days of collecting recipes we typed them all up into a handy dandy spreadsheet, set up a few equations and ratios, categorized the recipes by similar ingredient ratios, and selected one recipe from each category to actually make. If you're like me and got lost somewhere in that last sentence... basically Todd did some cool spreadsheet magic and we were able to narrow things down.
We gathered a total of 22 recipes. After the spreadsheet handiwork we then had our categories set and started testing out the 12 final contestants. So no, we did not make every single one. Sorry if that over-cooks your grits.
One thing that we learned very quickly was that everyone has their preferences when it comes to chocolate chip cookies. We had a good number of neighbors and friends as taste testers and there was rarely a clear winner between the two recipes going head to head. Crunchy, chewy, flat, bulbous (?), gooey, chocolately, etc. Everyone likes something different! For example my childhood BFF submitted a recipe that had a package of vanilla pudding as one of the ingredients. While this cookie was very moist (one of my favorites because of said texture) the chocolate chip count was low and it did not get high marks from my husband. From that we learned that for us if there's less than 2 cups of chocolate chips in the recipe we pretty much already know we wont be fans. After a few other recipes we learned that we like the richer cookies with higher measurements of brown sugar, butter, and of course- chocolate chips. We even adapted the winning recipe to have more brown sugar and more butter and it's goooood.
Speaking of the winner...
Nah not yet... what else can I bore you with? Wait no? You already scrolled to the bottom. Okay. Well... if you're interested...
The runners up (runner ups?) are...
3rd place:
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies- Erin Herd
Master Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe- Rachel Laraia
2nd place:
"Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies"- Natalie Salt
"Chocolate Chip Cookies (The Best Recipe!)"- Mel's Kitchen Cafe
And the winner of the great chocolate chip cookie quest is...
"The Best Recipe!"- Brittany Scott
This recipe makes a dang good chocolate chip cookie. It's rich and because you sort of "sear" it somehow it still tastes like cookie dough. Not like gooey under cooked dough (cause it's not under cooked) it's almost like you added cookie dough extract if that were a thing.
There are three VERY IMPORTANT tips to making these cookies. Brittany claims that these tips are more valuable than the recipe. The tips are these-
1. Whip the cold butter and both sugars for a long time before adding anything else.
2. Use Mexican vanilla, not regular vanilla or imitation vanilla - trust me!
3. You have to put them in a HOT oven, it can't be warming up or they'll cook through too much.
Ingredients (our adapted version in parenthesis):
3/4 C. brown sugar (1 C.)
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 C. cold butter- straight from the fridge! (3/4 C.)
1-2 T. Mexican vanilla (we use normal vanilla and they still taste incredible)
1 egg
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 T. baking soda
2 1/2 -3 C. flour depending on elevation to get play-dough like consistency
2 C. semi sweet chocolate chips
Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Whip the brown sugar, white sugar, and cold butter on high for 3-4 minutes.
- Add the vanilla, egg, salt, baking soda, and flour one at a time while mixing on low. Add more flour until you get a play dough like consistency.
- Mix in the chocolate chips!
- Using your medium cookie scoop (#40, 1.5 TBLS) and scoop the cookie dough onto your cookie sheets. I can usually fit 18 per sheet.
- Bake for 8 minutes and let them cool for 10-15 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
- Eat. Enjoy.
So there you have it! The actual only chocolate chip cookie recipe that you'll ever need. Now go make them. Right now.
