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Chocolate Chip Cookies Parametric 2.0

The Infographic 2.0

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If you’re interested in seeing how we compared and contrasted the data for the original infographic, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NNidATK2Gft-c1CCuF7nrU7AzcaFpW8OQEp2L0pA_W8/edit?usp=sharing">here is a copy of the spreadsheet we worked from</a>. Make a copy for yourself. Add more cookies to it. Bake test batches of cookies with new variables you want to try. Become the cookie scientist you want to be.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: A Parametric Recipe

The original infographic

All chocolate chip cookies are made with the same handful of ingredients.

Flour: Wheat flour gives chocolate chip cookies structure, and the type of flour used directly affects a cookie’s texture and shape. High-protein flours, like bread flour, provide more structure and chew, but can produce a crumbly texture. Flours with lower protein content, like cake and pastry flour, make doughs that spread more during baking, since they provide less structure, but they also produce a more tender cookie.

Fat: Fat plays multiple roles in a cookie dough, and since cookie doughs contain a lot of fat, the type of fat used in the recipe will have a profound effect on the final cookie. Fat functions as a tenderizer (by coating gluten in fat and thus limiting gluten formation); acts as a leavening agent (when creamed—or mixed with sugar and aerated); assists browning; and adds flavor. Butter is the fat of choice for chocolate chip cookies. Whole butter contributes to a cookie’s texture by providing water for additional gluten development. Browned butter adds toasty toffee notes to cookies.

Sugars: Sugar, like fat, plays multiple roles in a cookie dough. Sugar functions as a sweetener; acts as a tenderizer (by competing with gluten for water in the dough); serves as a leavening agent (when mixed with fat to assist with aerating the fat); adds color to the dough; and promotes caramelization of the surfaces. Sugar also produces some of the defining qualities of a cookie: Sugar forms a glass once melted and cooled, which produces a crispy, snappy texture; it interferes with starch gelatinization and protein coagulation, which produces more spread during baking; and invert sugars (such as in brown sugar or corn syrup) disrupt sugar crystal formation, softening the glass that forms and producing more tender textures. Brown sugar is also slightly acidic, so it helps to activate baking soda, which needs to be combined with an acid in order to begin producing carbon dioxide.

Leavening agents: Like all baked goods, cookies need some leavening agent to make the dough expand and rise, which produces a lighter, airier, more tender texture. Cookie doughs often include two forms of leavening: chemical leavening agents, like baking soda or baking powder, which produce carbon dioxide as the dough bakes; and mechanical leavening, like creaming fat and sugar together and trapping air in the mixture (aerating it), which expands as the dough bakes are most commonly used for cookies. Free water in the dough will also convert to steam as the dough bakes, which contributes to rise as well.

Starches and alternative flours: Some chocolate chip cookie recipes incorporate starches, like cornstarch, as well as alternative flours, which can affect the texture and flavor. Cookies that contain cornstarch will bake up a little more crisp and won’t brown as much or as quickly; cookies that contain alternative flours like teff flour, for example, will take on added flavor notes from the flour itself. Starches and alternative flours are used to replace wheat flour entirely in <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies">gluten-free chocolate chip cookies</a>.

Eggs: Eggs serve as a kind of glue to hold all the disparate ingredients in cookie dough together. Egg whites help produce structure through protein coagulation, soften the cookie, and make it chewier and less brittle; egg yolks help emulsify the dough so cookies don’t bake up greasy, and they help with producing crispy textures.

Chocolate: Can’t have a chocolate chip cookie without chocolate! Using chocolate of different levels of quality and different forms (callets, wafers, pistoles, chips, chopped up chunks) will affect the texture and appearance of the cookie. For example, chocolate chips are designed to maintain their shape even when heated; when used in cookie dough, that means the resulting cookies will spread less while baking. Chopped chocolate, on the other hand, is more likely to melt; when used in cookie dough, chopped chocolate will produce a cookie dough that spreads more, and the chocolate will melt and pool. High-quality chocolate made primarily with cacao will taste better and less sweet; low-quality chocolate will taste sweeter and greasier. Finally, the kind of chocolate, whether it’s darker and more bitter or lighter and sweeter, will determine the flavor profile of the cookie.

Vanilla: Vanilla is often used in chocolate chip cookies to add aroma and flavor, and it complements the vanilla that’s used in most chocolate.

Salt: Salt is crucial for seasoning a chocolate chip cookie. It heightens sweetness and helps to bring out the other flavors in the dough.

The Elements of Chocolate Chip Cookies

To learn more about chocolate chip cookies, check out our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/guides-tools/ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies">Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>.{activity:2fiRX81Eq6z3SESS38jR9p}

The Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies

Become a Smart Cookie!

The Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 200 g
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫🍫
Texture: Thick and chewy
Trick: Cornstarch
Recipe: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Brdo6NUg-N8/?hl=en">Grant</a>’<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Brdo6NUg-N8/?hl=en">s Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

Weighing in at just over 200 g, these chonky, thick, and chewy cookies have tons of complexity of (extra toasty!) flavor from butter that’s browned with additional non fat milk solids, in addition to a generous dose of vanilla extract. The dough itself is relatively lean, which is why they’re best when eaten fresh out of the oven; if you want to eat them the next day, it’s best to pop them in the toaster oven for a bit first.

Grant Crilly - Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 42 g 
Sweetness: 🍭🍭🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫🍫
Texture: Crisp
Trick: n/a 
Recipe: <a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/bravetart-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe">BraveTart Chopped Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

These crisp-edged cookies with a distinctive lip come from Stella Parks’ thoroughly researched cookbook, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/BraveTart-American-Desserts-Stella-Parks/dp/0393239861?tag=chefsteps02-20">BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts</a>. The generous hand with sugar in the dough produces a cookie with a glassily crisp texture, and chunks of chopped chocolate melt into pleasing pools.

BraveTart - Chopped Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 30 g 
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫
Texture: Chewy and crispy
Trick: Aged and torn dough
Recipe: <a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-best-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe">The Food Lab’s Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

These chewy and crispy cookies from J. Kenji López-Alt employ an atypical method of tearing each rested and chilled portion of cookie dough in two and smushing the pieces back together, with the torn pieces facing out. The move creates extra-craggy cookies, increasing crispness. They’ve got browned butter in the dough, giving it a toffee flavor that stands out in part because there’s relatively little chocolate, which is dispersed in irregular chunks for extra textural contrast. The dough is also bulk aged overnight before baking to improve the flavor with heightened butterscotch notes.

Serious Eats - The Food Lab’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 1 tablespoon
Sweetness: 🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫
Texture: Crisp edges, soft and chewy center
Trick: The OG chocolate chip cookie
Recipe: <a href="https://www.nestle.com/stories/timeless-discovery-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe">Toll House’s Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

The original chocolate chip cookie recipe, the one that started it all—the one that inspired Nestlé to produce “chocolate chips” for the masses. Not too sweet, sort of in the middle of the pack with respect to butter fat content and chocolate intensity, think of the Platonic form of a chocolate cookie—not THE BEST cookie, just one that has all the trappings—and you’ve got it. And while you’re doing that, give a little bow to Ruth Wakefield, who invented the dang thing in 1939 and blessed us all.

Toll House - Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 2 tablespoons
Sweetness: 🍭🍭🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫
Texture: Crisp edges, rich and chewy center
Trick: Non fat milk solids
Recipe: <a href="https://www.christinatosi.com/post/best-ever-chocolate-chip-cookies">Christina Tosi’s Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

These cookies from pastry chef Christina Tosi, of Momofuku Milk Bar fame, are without a doubt the richest of the whole bunch. Some nonfat milk powder added to the dough boosts the toasty flavor of the cookies.

Christina Tosi - Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 1/4 cup
Sweetness: 🍭
Richness: 🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫🍫🍫
Texture: Thick and chewy
Trick: Aged 24 hours 
Recipe: <a href="https://mrchocolate.com/blogs/recipes/national-chocolate-chip-cookie-day?">Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

Figures that the cookies made by “Mr. Chocolate” himself feature a ton of chocolate! Like the Food Lab cookies, this chocolate-packed dough rests for a while before baking—24 to 36 hours—which produces a thick and chewy cookie.

Jacques Torres - Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: n/a 
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫
Texture: n/a
Recipe: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Baking-Trade-Wayne-Gisslen/dp/0471346470?tag=chefsteps02-20">Professional Baking’s Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

This recipe comes from the third edition of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Baking-Trade-Wayne-Gisslen/dp/0471346470?tag=chefsteps02-20">Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen</a>, a fixture of pastry school syllabi.

Professional Baking - Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 2 tablespoons
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫🍫🍫
Texture: Soft centers 
Trick: Cornstarch, chilling before baking
Recipe: <a href="https://annaolson.ca/project/classic-chocolate-chip-cookies/">Anna Olson’s Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

These cookies from Anna Olson use cornstarch in the dough to ensure that the centers of the cookies remain soft, and they&#39;re chilled before baking to limit the amount of spread. By the numbers, it’s a relatively lean dough—not too sweet—but with a quantity of chocolate chips that rivals Jacques Torres’ recipe.

Anna Olson - Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 3 tablespoons
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫
Texture: Soft center, crispy, crinkly edges
Trick: Brown butter
Recipe: <a href="https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/40-the-perfect-chocolate-chip-cookie">America’s Test Kitchen’s Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

This America’s Test Kitchen recipe makes a cookie with brown, crinkly edges and a soft center. The addition of an egg yolk makes it an outlier and produces a cookies that’s a little more moist and chewy. Dissolving the sugar into liquid before making the dough helps caramelize it more quickly, creating more toffee-like notes. Like a few other recipes, browned butter is used, but it’s combined with melted whole butter to provide a little more free water to develop more gluten for more chew.

America’s Test Kitchen - Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 100 g 
Sweetness: 🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫
Texture: Crisp and crunchy edges
Trick: Banging the pan mid-bake, added water
Recipe: <a href="https://food52.com/recipes/81563-pan-banging-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe-adaptation">Sarah Kieffer’s Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>

These internet-famous cookies from Sarah Kieffer, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Vanilla-Bean-Baking-Book-Irresistible/dp/1583335846?tag=chefsteps02-20">The Vanilla Bean Baking Book: Recipes for Irresistible Everyday Favorites and Reinvented Classics</a>, call for banging the pan the cookies are cooking on halfway through baking to produce a wrinkly surface. This recipe also contains A LOT of sugar and butter, all of it in the service of chasing crisp, shattery edges with a gooey center.

EDITORS’ NOTE: We originally used the version of Sarah Kieffer’s recipe that was published by Food52, for our parametric analysis, which is the version we’ve linked to above. Kieffer <a href="https://www.thevanillabeanblog.com/pan-banging-chocolate-chip-cookies/">has a slightly different “original” version of the recipe on her website</a>. We’ve preserved the ingredient quantities from the Food52 version for the updated parametric analysis.

Sarah Kieffer - Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies

Portion size: 100 g 
Sweetness: 🍭🍭
Richness: 🧈🧈
Chocolate: 🍫🍫
Texture: Yes
Trick: Math! 
Recipe: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-when-average-equals-amazing">ChefSteps’ The Ultimate Average Chocolate Chip Cookie</a>

This is it: the best chocolate chip cookie around! By averaging the ingredient quantities (by baker’s percentage), you get all the best parts of all these amazing chocolate chip cookies. It’s chewy, crunchy, crispy, soft, chocolatey—it is literally all the things!

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This Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie is a product of analyzing the 10-best chocolate chip cookie recipes on the internet, then averaging out all the ingredients. It's a great chocolate chip cookie.

The Ultimate Average Chocolate Chip Cookie

ChefSteps - The Ultimate Average Chocolate Chip Cookie

How do you like your chocolate chip cookies? Do you like them chewy or soft with barely set edges? Do you like them thin and crispy? Or do you like ’em thick and chonky, maybe with a little sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top?You’re a grown-up. You can have whatever kind of cookie you want, whenever you want.
We pulled together 10 of our favorite published recipes for chocolate chip cookies, ones that display an ample range of qualities, and we stacked them up against one another. We converted their ingredient lists to baker’s percentages (each ingredient expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight), then lined them all up to see what we could see.
And then we asked the question: What if you just took the average of the baker’s percentages across all of these recipes and made a new chocolate chip cookie formula? Turns out, you make the best chocolate chip cookie of them all: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-when-average-equals-amazing">The Ultimate Average Chocolate Chip Cookie</a>!EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve updated the infographic and page to add more data from our original calculations, including the amount of leavening agent in each recipe, and to include a list of recipes. We’ve kept the original infographic in the page; you can find it in the tip just below the updated infographic. We’ve moved the information on altering the texture of chocolate chip cookies to our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/guides-tools/ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies">Ultimate Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies</a>.

Chocolate Chip Cookies: A Parametric Analysis