Making The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe - Part 1
Have you always wanted to make your perfect chocolate chip cookie? This is where you need to start. If you click on any other site claiming they have ‘the best’ cookie recipe…you need to run. We all have different preferences when it comes to cookies and only you know what you like!
I started out on this venture 2 years ago when I set out to make great cookies. We all know I love to overanalyze things and break them down. This will be an unknown amount of sections at the moment, because there is a lot more that goes into making cookies than one would think. This post will focus on butter, sugar, and ratios.
Weigh Your Flour!
If you do not have a kitchen scale at home, I consider it a must. If you aren’t that invested you can go with the scoop and level method, but weighing is the most accurate! The amount of flour that goes into your cookie plays a massive part in how it will turn out. If you just scoop flour out of the bag with your measuring cup, it is definitely going to be more than the standard cup (124 grams). More flour means a denser, cakier, and taller cookie. This might sound delicious to some people, but too much flour just leads to a dry crumbly cookie. Keep things consistent!
No One Likes Math, but Ratios are Our Friends
Also known as Baker’s Percentages, are recipes that are based off the weight of the flour. That way you can see the amount of flour, sugar and fat that are in the recipe. This will be a good indicator of what kind of cookie a recipe will produce. For example, my most recent experiment used 310 grams of flour (2.25 cups). The flour is always 100% and every other measurement is based off that number (This recipe will be written out on the bottom!).
For this experiment, I used 12 tbsp of butter (1.5 sticks) which comes out to 168 grams (1 tbsp of butter is 14 grams). If you take 168/310 you get 54%. That means this recipe is made up of 54% fat. This is on the lower side of most recipes, but yields a slightly taller cookie, crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle. It is also nice because it isn’t overly greasy.
Another important ratio to look at is sugar (More on what sugar does in a recipe below). The recipe I am analyzing uses 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar. All together that is 1.5 cups of sugar. 1 cup of sugar converts to 200 grams, so our 1.5 comes out to 300 grams all together. To get our percentage, you take 300/310 and that equals 97% rounded. Most cookie recipes range from 70-120% in a cookie recipe.
Butter is Our Friend…and Our Enemy
There are a lot of things you can do when it comes to working with butter. Unsalted is preferred, but salted works just fine. Make sure you adjust how much salt you add in.
One thing you will see around the internet is brown butter. It’s everywhere. First off, do not brown salted butter, it does not work! Second, I personally do not think it is worth the extra time. You can feel free to try it out. It enhances the caramel notes in the cookie.
Next is, melted, softened, or cold butter? Melted is your friend if you want a thinner/crispier cookie. I personally ALWAYS use softened. It is the only way you can properly cream your butter and sugars together and get some volume in your cookie. When you cream butter you are incorporating air pockets into the mix. Cold butter is used when you want a tall dense cookie (similar to Levain Bakery). Cold butter is difficult work with because the longer you try and incorporate it into the dough, the warmer is gets. Warm butter means more spread. Be weary of this approach as a beginner.
You might be wondering, ‘Chloe, when is the butter softened?’. Never fear! I hope you have a food safe thermometer at home, because if not, please buy one. I cut my butter up into tablespoon sized chunks into the bowl I am going to use. I let it sit for 30 minutes and check the temperature. The magic temperature to cream butter properly is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point, make sure all of your other ingredients are ready to go. Start mixing on a low speed for 1 minute. Add your sugars and mix on a low-medium speed for 1-2 minutes.
Sugar is Our True Love
Sugar is a wonderful thing. Luckily, cookies are usually made with two kinds of sugars. Both play a part in flavor, texture, and spread. Let’s start off with classic white granulated sugar. If you want a crispy cookie with a lot of spread, you are going to want to use more sugar, than brown sugar (Try 3/4 or 1 cup to 1/2 of brown sugar). These cookies will also be lighter in color.
I am personally a bigger fan of light brown sugar (if you want more of a brown butter flavor without the effort of brown butter, try using dark brown sugar). It is what creates the lovely molasses/caramel flavor in our cookies. Cookies with more brown sugar have more chew and moisture to them. The molasses in the brown sugar will react with the baking soda and make your cookie puffier. Using 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of sugar has always yielded a crispy edge and chewy gooey center. If you are interested in seeing my recipe, scroll on down below! I will write my exact procedure when I am done with this series.
My Current Recipe
12 tbsp softened butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
2.25 cups of flour
Pinch of salt
1.5 cups of chocolate chips
Reminder- other add-ins will effect spread and texture! I weigh out 65 grams of cookie dough and chill in the fridge for 24 hours. Bake 14-16 minutes at 350!