On Chocolate Chip Cookies and the Quest for Perfection
Chocolate chip cookies. What comes to mind for you? For me, chocolatey, perfect, delicious goodness.
If you have ever baked a chocolate chip cookie, you probably know that they are an exact science. One less pinch of flour and they can’t hold their shape, one extra minute in the oven and they lose their chewy center. Although any chocolate chip cookie is good, finding the perfect recipe and making it just right takes finesse.
Knowing this, it might surprise you to find out that the chocolate chip cookie was originally the product of… a mistake! In 1930, Ruth Wakefield was making chocolate cookies (not chocolate chip- just plain chocolate cookies). Ruth was out of chocolate powder, which she would mix into the dough to make cookies chocolaty. So, halfway through her dough-making, she improvised. She chopped up a chocolate bar and folded the chocolate bar chunks into her dough, hoping that they would dissolve in the oven and act the same way the chocolate powder did. To her surprise, the chocolate didn’t dissolve into the cookie. Instead, it melted into gooey chocolate bits, and viola… the chocolate chip cookie was born. The cookie, at the time dubbed “the chocolate crunch cookie,” was a hit.
Since then, the chocolate chip cookie has been refined and there are now thousands of chocolate chip cookie recipes online. Here are my favorites:
First up, we have The Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. The reason I call this The Recipe is that, if you bought a bag of chocolate chips, chances are this recipe would be on the back. It’s the recipe that would first come up under a simple google search for “chocolate chip cookie recipe.” It’s not like this recipe is for lazy people who won’t venture to the vast corners of Allrecipes.com in search of the perfect recipe. It’s more for the people who need a good launch pad into the wondrous world of chocolate chip cookie baking.
I would say that our family used The Recipe for a good few years before graduating to more complicated recipes. This recipe is honestly all that you need for a good cookie.
As I said, we used to use this recipe a lot, and while we followed the recipe pretty closely, we liked to change what we put in the dough. We never added the nuts- we are not a nutty dessert family. We also used to eyeball the number of chocolate chips we added in rather than sticking with the exact amount recommended on the back of the package. If we were feeling fancy, we might have added in some M&M’s, too.
I know that I keep saying “we.” This is because making cookies should be a family experience. I hardly ever make cookies alone. It is ten times more fun to do it with someone else, even if you just facetime a friend while you make the recipe. That way you can listen to music, talk, and not feel guilty when you eat some of the dough because the other person will surely be doing it right along with you.
Also, don’t sweat it if you mess up the recipe! (Like I have.) This recipe is so basic that if you mess it up, there’s most likely a way to fix it. If not, eat all the messed up dough raw and then make another batch!
All in all, The Recipe is the perfect place to start. If you haven’t made chocolate chip cookies before, making this will show you what a chocolate chip cookie is all about.
For that person who loves their cookies store-bought-
If you’ve already made chocolate chip cookies, you’re probably wondering why they don’t stack up to the ones at the store. Well, first things first, a homemade cookie will probably be better for you than something that uses a bunch of chemicals you can’t pronounce. But, if you still think that, no matter the health benefits, cookies from the store taste better, this recipe is for you.
I have so many good memories tied to Tate’s cookies. We used to buy them as a special treat on plane trips and I used to snack on them in the school lunchroom. They just have a special quality (their super crunch maybe?) that makes them lovable.
But, as I said earlier, eating something that has ingredients you can’t pronounce will always be bested by something that you made with your own two hands (and possibly a stand mixer).
So, I found this recipe and I don’t think I’ve yearned for a store-bought cookie since!
For the crunch lover-
I’ve saved the best for last! This recipe is probably my favorite one. I don’t usually like to pick favorites, but this recipe stands out. I am an avid lover of heath bars and crunchy cookies, so this recipe checks all the boxes.
We got this recipe at a zoom seminar my mother attended about the perfect cookie. The man hosting owns the Red Gate Bakery, a bakery in NYC, and my mom signed us up to get a recording of the seminar and the recipe. I never actually watched the video recording. To be honest, I thought that this was just another baker who came up with a recipe and was calling it perfect to get people to check it out.
My mother made them first to try out the recipe, and when I smelled the cookies coming out of the oven, I knew. They were perfect. There are a few certain qualities that make them just right.
First, they are made with browned butter, which gives them a nutty taste and makes the batter taste like toffee. Second, they have bits of heath-bar and chopped-up chocolate in them. The best part of eating this cookie (for me) is biting down and then noticing that you’re eating a little bit of melty toffee or chocolate. And lastly, you don’t need a mixer. This recipe is a breeze to make, and the only remotely complicated thing you need to do is brown some butter.
If you’ve already made a lot of cookie recipes and can’t seem to find the perfect one, give this recipe a try and I’m sure your search will end (I included the recipe in the slideshow below. This recipe is as my mother got it. In the ingredients, it mentions vanilla extract but does not say when to put it in, so we just leave it out. Just so you know, I also reached out to Greg Rales, who ran the seminar and owns the Red Gate Bakery, to see if it was ok for me to use his recipe. I felt a little nervous about sending an email to a stranger, but his response was so kind, which was great and he let me publish his recipe here, which is even greater! Remember to go to his bakery when you’re in New York next 🙂 ).
There is a recipe out there for you. And if you ever worry about not liking your recipe or think that the recipe will come out of the oven all wrong, just remember that the chocolate chip cookie started out as an accident. Who knows, maybe you will end up the next Ruth Wakefield and invent a new type of dessert!
