Making The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe - Part 3

In case you missed it, Part 1 focused on weighing ingredients, butter, and sugars. Part 2 focused on flour ratios, baking soda vs. baking powder, and salt.

Here we are at part 3, almost baking time. If you have made it this far, you are officially cookie scientists and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read about my experiments!

How many eggs should you use?

Eggs are necessary to the science of cookie baking! Actually, they are necessary for most baking and a lot of cooking. Eggs act as a binder for recipes. This helps hold the shape and structure. In cookies, it affects the chew and feel of the cookie. The more eggs you use, the chewier your cookie will be. Standard recipes call for 1 or 2 (I use 2), but if you want to try it out, some people use 3.

The key to mixing in eggs is allowing them to emulsify and beat until your cookie dough looks fluffy and light. This step also incorporates more air into your dough and gives your cookies volume in the final result. I feel like regardless of what kind of cookie you want (thin and crispy, or chewy middle with crispy edges, or soft all around) the number of eggs and how you mix them mostly affects the texture and how chewy they are.

Do we actually need to discuss vanilla…

No, because you need to add it. Unless it is the end of the year and you want to try adding peppermint extract instead of vanilla. BUT, vanilla is the best. It smells amazing and tastes wonderful. I add 1 tablespoon to my standard dough.

Step up you base dough with add-ins!

There are endless possibilities with add-ins. You just make your base cookie dough and add in your extra ingredients of choice. My favorite ingredients to add in are peanut butter and oatmeal. Other add-ins to try-

• Bacon bits and chips

• M&M’s

• Sugary Cereals

• Marshmallows, Graham Crackers, and Chocolate

• Peanut butter

• Oatmeal

One thing I have noticed is different add-ins affect how much your cookies spread in the oven. Peanut butter tricked me for the longest time. I thought it would act like butter and cause the cookies to spread more. It does the exact opposite! Don’t reduce your butter when you add peanut butter (if you want the same type of cookie as your base recipe). Oatmeal can substitute some of your flour if you don’t want your cookies to be dry, tall, and dense. You will need to experiment with add-ins to see how they mess with your base recipe.

One more important step before baking- CHILLING

People think they can skip this step because they want their cookies to spread more, but chilling or freezing your dough does much more than hold your cookies shape. It allows all of the ingredients to get to know each other, and deepens the flavor. I also prefer to bake 4-8 cookies at a time.

Warm cookies fresh out of the oven are the best. It is sort of hard to eat 20-30 cookies fresh out of the oven! It is also convenient when I’m feeling lazy, to just take out a couple of cookies from the freezer and toss them in the oven. In less than 20 minutes I have fresh cookies and I didn’t have to take the time to make a whole new batch of dough.

To do this, I weigh out 60-80 gram dough balls, roll them, and store them in a Tupperware container in the freezer. They never last 3 months, but they will!

You also have the option to store your dough in the fridge for 3-5 days. After that, the dough starts to break down and will taste bland. If you choose this option, you must make sure they are sealed tightly or else they will form a weird dry crust from sitting in the fridge.

Part 4 will look at baking temperatures, time, size of dough ball, and cooling racks.