For years, I’ve been considering whether my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe was, well, wrong. That the whole time I’d pledged allegiance to the original Toll House classic, out there existed another cookie recipe that was superior in chocolate content, chewiness and cookie dough consumption potential.
For that reason, I decided to host a chocolate chip cookie tasting. I carefully selected the recipes and not-so-carefully selected the judges, culminating in an afternoon of sugary, buttery, chocolatey goodness and 120 cookies in my kitchen. (I know. I should have halved the recipes.) The judges were given index cards on which to rank each of the three cookie recipes on a scale of 1 through 5, 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
The cookies were ranked on the following criteria:
- Chewy-to-Soft Ratio
- Cookie-to-Chocolate Ratio
- Salt Content
- Milk Dippability
- Thickness
- Taste of Cookie Dough
I also asked the judges what their favorite cookie was overall and, if each cookie was a celebrity, which celebrity it would be.
First, let’s meet the judges. In the interest of parallel structure, their biographies consist of where they attend(ed) college. (I like to think I achieved diversity by drawing from UNC and Duke. It’s reassuring to know that being in the same geographical area isn’t our only commonality. We all love cookies.)
Rachel: UNC graduate
Cookie preference: A
Ryan: UNC graduate
Cookie preference: B
Gwynne: UNC graduate
Cookie preference: A
Melissa: Duke graduate
Cookie preference: A
Lauren: Duke student
Cookie preference: B
Me, Meghan: UNC student
Cookie preference: between A & B (my blog, my rules!)
As you can see, the race was a close one. Cookies A & B were quite similar in their ingredient ratios, but not quite. Check out each cookie’s profile below.
Cookie A: The Tollhouse Original
Ranking:
- chewy-to-soft ratio–3.9
- cookie-to-chocolate ratio–2.8
- salt content–3.1
- milk dippability–4.2
- thickness–4.6
- taste of cookie dough–4
- overall–3.78
Cookie B: Martha Stewart Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ranking:
- chewy-to-soft ratio–4.4
- cookie-to-chocolate ratio–4
- salt content–3
- milk dippability–3.9
- thickness–4.1
- taste of cookie dough–4.1
- overall–3.9
Cookie C: Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ranking:
- chewy-to-soft ratio–2.1
- cookie-to-chocolate ratio–3.5
- salt content–3
- milk dippability–3.4
- thickness–2.2
- taste of cookie dough–1.6
- overall–2.6
As you can see, our results were inconclusive. Cookie B won in rankings, but the majority of judges preferred Cookie A. I felt bad for Cookie C, because I wanted to believe that the extra step (browning the butter) would be somehow redeeming. Rachel said it was “trying too hard.” Naturally, I have to try making it again, just to be sure I didn’t mess up royally during the production process.
I’d say that if you like a chewier cookie, go for B. If you like a softer cookie, go for A. Melissa also wavered between A and B, but said that A had “some magical superiority” that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. If you like your cookie GTL-style, go for C.
As for the The New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe, I decided that, in the interest of maintaining some semblance of a budget on this blog and in my life, spending $20+ on Valrhona chocolate discs contradicted my food and finance principles (food is worth the investment, but let’s not get crazy). Also, a lady I met while contemplating the Valrhona chocolate at Whole Foods declared the cookies “nothing special.”
Ultimately, I’ve learned that sometimes, all you need is a little tweak to the original to keep things interesting. Change the ingredient ratio, change the type of chocolate, bake the cookies a bit longer, etc. Like music. (“American Pie” album version versus live version is all well and good, but never, ever the Madonna cover.)
Like life, in fact. Tweaking ourselves in the quest for self-improvement, but still maintaining our original integrity, our core beliefs, our buttery-sweet goodness. Never compromise on that. (And always use real butter.)
