The Great Cookie Test...

Needs more chips. But not too many more.

I have a lifelong love of the chocolate chip cookie. Growing up my mom used the Tollhouse recipe, except with margarine instead of butter, and sans nuts, thank you very much.

Except somewhere along the line I decided margarine was lame (because it is), and started using butter instead. While I have a slightly clearer conscience about the quality of the obscene amount of junk I'm shoveling into my body with butter ones, I've spent years tweaking the recipe to get it to turn out closer to my cookies of long ago (i.e., not greasy flat discs). In recovery circles they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results. Using this reasoning I should be very, very sane from trying so many different things over the years, but unfortunately I have never achieved the same result as my childhood cookies. Because, trans fats. The closest I've come is the fabled Neiman-Marcus recipe, which I do enjoy, but requires special treatment so I'm not inclined to count it as equivalent to the old stand-by.

Well, this lady did a parametric study on Tollhouse tweaks, resulting in a handy-dandy chart of cookie goodness, which you might've seen making its way around Facebook and Pinterest as of late. And while I loved the IDEA of embarking on my own study, I understood the reality of time and ingredients and suddenly felt very tired and sluggish.

And then there's the Cat Daddy, who feels that the cookies I make are "just fine the way they are," and doesn't understand why I would want to re-invent this particular wheel. He also may or may not realize that, at least in my eyes, they turn out differently every single time. I don't think we have the same goals and desires for our cookies.

Well after a 4-year stint at high altitude, which brought its own set of gifts and problems, I finally just kind of threw my hands up at the whole situation. I mean, I do still bake cookies occasionally, but let's be honest, the kids care about (1) getting as much cookie dough into themselves as I will allow/not notice, and (2) getting as many cookies into themselves as I will allow/not know about because I'm sleeping and they woke up at 3 AM to sneak them (lots of sneakery at my house), and I found the empty bowl and slice of bread the next morning, but at least the Cat Daddy will usually put the bowl in the sink, Littler One.

I digress.

That's all to say I sometimes bother to make dough from scratch, but other times I pick up the ready-made packs from the store. But no Pillsbury chocolate chip dough rolls, because come on, those cannot compare with the little Tollhouse pull-apart pucks.

So the last couple months have found me on an unexpected journey. Unexpected in that I wasn't planning on studying cookies, and also in that I didn't expect cookie-related adversity, mostly in the form of guff from the Cat Daddy.

It started with my online friend Emily. I read her post about what might be the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, which of course I took as a personal challenge, because who wouldn't want to be in possession of the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever? I told her that I would be trying the recipe soon, probably in the next week, and I'd let her know how they turned out.

About six weeks later I found that we had both the ingredients and required block of time, so my sous chef and I commenced with the cookie baking. We assembled our ingredients:

• One pound salted butter
• 1 3/4 cups white sugar
• 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 6 cups + 2 Tablespoons flour
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 pounds dark chocolate chunks

From here it's basic cookie protocol:

• Combine the dry things
• Combine the wet things (sugars count as wet here, as many Good Eats aficionados will know) 
• Gradually add the dry to the wet, finishing off with the chocolate pieces at the end
• Exercise great restraint, cover the dough, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour

Then, and only then:

• Preheat the oven to 350F
• Line cookie sheet(s) with parchment
• Roll the cookies into balls, place on parchment, and bake until done (10-15 min. Ish.)

Good for developing fine motor skills in sous chefs

• Don't even think of removing them from the pan until they've cooled a bit. I rotated between two pans, placing the one from the oven onto a wire rack for a few minutes before I removed the cookies to another wire rack and re-loaded the pan. Emily says let the pan return to room temp, and while I don't know if I waited that long, it was at least close.
• Enjoy the cookies. Share if you want. Don't listen to the naysayers who are anti-progress when it comes to cookies.

And now for some discussion and tips...

--I read several years ago that for chocolate chip cookies, the vanilla should be at least tripled to a Tablespoon, so this is my general practice. I have never been disappointed.

--The commissary didn't have dark chocolate chunks, but they did have Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, so I went with those. Honestly, I'm not sure if I would have tasted the difference between those and the Tollhouse ones, but Emily said to trust her that Ghirardelli would be good and she certainly was correct on that point. If you know about my mild addiction to Nestle dark chocolate chips, you might wonder why I wouldn't use those here, and the answer is that I love them so much I wouldn't want to taint their complexity with any other ingredients. The right tool for the job, and all that.

As to the quantity of chips, this is highly subjective. I realize this will sound heretical to some, but I generally go with about half what the recipe calls for. Here I started with a full 12-oz bag of chips and that seemed a little sparse, even for me, so I added another half a bag, but that seemed a little much. So, use your judgement on the chocolate chips/chunks. 

--The dough will be really thick. Even my Kitchenaid Pro was whining at me, and it took everything in me not to yell, "Suck it up, this is what you were made for!" It got the job done, but you may want to keep an eye on your mixer just to make sure it doesn't suddenly go kaput. Not that I would know about that sort of thing.

--Keep an eye on the cookies! That line between "ew, too doughy" and "ugh, too crunchy" is mighty fine. My best pans came out just before I thought they were done. If you can, stick with using the oven light and opening the oven as little as possible. We want to bake the cookies, not fan them indulgently with an oven door.

--I have found out that life goes better for many reasons when we do baked goods in smaller batches, so I baked a third of the batch, split the remainder into two little batches, wrapped each in wax paper, and froze both in a freezer bag. A week later when I needed something dessert-ish for a gathering, badda-boom, badda-bing.

I will caution you about this method though. You may or may not find yourself sawing off corners of frozen dough to sneak when the kids aren't around (I know. Sneakery...), or eating tiny little slabs of frozen dough for breakfast, or something. Discipline, people. This is all I am saying.

--The cold dough is tough to work with, but I found it really does produce the best result. If it gets too squishy, of course just stick it back in the fridge for a while and resume.

Also, keep an eye on your sous chef. Some are known, under the guise of ball-rolling, to actually perform chip removal (via SNEAKERY), which may or may not be desirable...

"I'm just tasting, Mom."

--And as many people like to do, try tweaking the recipe for your particular equipment and tastes. I tried smushing the balls just a touch and found I preferred them un-smushed. The next time I plan to try a smidgen less flour, just to see what happens, and try maybe one bag plus just a few extra chocolate chips, to see if the balance is better.

--My household is a tough crowd. Certain cookie conservatives were upset--nay, OFFENDED--at the mere mention of my trying a new cookie recipe (and also with 'way too much chocolate,' as they put it. Which was true, but a confusing way to phrase it because how can one ever have too much chocolate??). While I appreciate their love of cookies past, I found this a worthy endeavor. The recipe as-is turned out wonderfully, and I received high praise from credible cookie lovers, so I feel confident recommending it.

Now go forth! And bake cookies! And let me know how it goes...