The Battle of the Chocolate Chip Cookies

Guys, it’s battle time.

It’s the battle for the most amazing, incredible, melt in your mouth, ultimate chocolate chip cookie. *the crowd goes wild!*

Today, we have two contenders.

*Imagine me saying this through a huge, crackly megaphone* Iiiiiiiit’s The Chewy VERSUUUUUUUS The Thick and Soft!

*Cheering, pounding on tables, and chest bumps ensue*

I’m going to go ahead and get my biases out on the table before we begin.

I already have a favorite chocolate chip cookie. I’ve had it for years now. Yeeeeeears.

Spoiler alert: It’s The Chewy. You all have met before.

The Chewy won a previous chocolate chip cookie battle and thenceforth became my one and only true chocolate chip cookie love.

But then I started to see pictures of another cookie. A thick, puffy cookie. A cookie described as the perfect balance between soft and chewy.

I first discovered it on Sally’s Baking Addiction. I was intrigued. This recipe contained a secret ingredient–cornstarch–that was said to produce gloriously puffy and soft cookies.

At first, I passed it by. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the other cookie. I would see it on Pinterest and Facebook. Everywhere I looked it was there. Tempting me, luring me, wooing me.

So I gave in. I made the other cookie.

And you know what? It was good. Reaaaaaally good. They baked up thick and puffy and soft but still had a nice chewy bite.

You guys know how this story ends. There was only one solution.

A battle. A battle of epic chocolatey proportions.

So my friend Cathy and I sacrificed an afternoon to make two batches of cookies. It’s a tough job, but someone had to do it.

We made everything very scientific. The cookies were scooped with the same cookie scoop, baked on the same pans, chilled for the same amount of time in the freezer, baked until just slightly underdone. We put the same amount of chocolate chips in both, just to make sure no one had a chocolatey advantage.

We had taste testers of all ages and genders try both cookies. They were asked to vote for their favorite and share why they liked it.

Here’s the breakdown of the results:

The Chewy:

Made with a higher proportion of butter, bread flour, and an extremely high brown sugar to white sugar ratio, these cookies were created by Alton Brown for one purpose: to be unbelievably chewy. He succeeded. Science, y’all.

Pros: Incredibly chewy (obvs), intense rich flavor, buttery, addictive

Cons: Slightly flat

The Thick and Soft:

This cookie has several of the traits that make The Chewy so chewy including melted butter and an extra egg yolk, but it uses all purpose flour and cornstarch to create thickness and keep them extra soft.

Pros: Puffy, thick, and soft, uniformly shaped, stays soft for up to a week, classic cookie flavor

Cons: Less rich, not as chewy, too salty

TOTAL VOTES: 

Chewy- 9

Thick and Soft- 6

Annnnnnnnd the winner is….THEEEEEEEEEEEEE CHEWY!

Weeeeeelll, kinda sorta.

You see, The Chewy won by votes, but truthfully, I think this battle comes down to personal preference.

Both of these cookies are stellar and I love each of them, but for different reasons. In my humble opinion, this isn’t a problem. After all, you can never have too many fantastic chocolate chip cookie recipes. The trick to finding your ultimate chocolate chip cookie is to know what you’re looking for in advance.

If you love thick, soft batch cookies with a balance of sweet and salty, you’re going to LOVE the Thick and Soft.

If you love buttery, ultra rich, cookies with an impossibly chewy bite, you’re going to ADORE The Chewy.

If you’re looking for pretty, uniform, perfectly rounded cookies to take to a fancy party, go with the Thick and Soft.

If you’re looking for a cookie to bake into a gooey, decadent deep dish cookie pie, go for The Chewy.

If you want a cookie that can stand up to lots of add ins– nuts, pretzels, whatever floats your boat– try The Thick and Soft.

If you want just plain gooooood chocolate chip cookies and looks aren’t a factor, I would still recommend The Chewy.

Whichever you choose, know that you will be rewarded with one of the best chocolate chip cookies you will ever eat. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Before you dive in, here are a few of my cookie baking tips:

Chill the dough. Chilling keeps the dough from spreading and results in thicker cookies. Since both of these cookies are made with melted butter, they require a longer chill time. If you don’t have several hours to let the dough chill in the fridge, you can scoop them onto cookie sheets and slip them in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking.

Use chopped chocolate. I recently started buying bulk chocolate and chopping it at home. The irregular chocolate chunks produce surprise hunks of melty chocolate that mingle with subtle, tiny ribbons of chocolate throughout the cookie. Plus, awesome things like this happen:

Rotate the pans. This may not be necessary for all ovens, but I’ve noticed if I put two sheets in at the same time and don’t rotate them or switch the shelves halfway through, they don’t bake as evenly. So set a timer for halfway through the cooking time and just take a few minutes to pull a little switcheroo.

Finally, double the recipe! Make however many cookies you want then scoop the remaining dough into balls and place them in a zip lock for a later time. (Check out my post with all my tips on freezing cookie dough.)  Then, all you have to do is pop them on a tray and add an extra minute to the baking time when you get a craving. This is also a wonderful thing to have on hand for last minute company. Trust me, having a fresh batch of cookies within a 15 minute reach at all times is never a bad thing.

 Recipe adapted from Alton Brown/The Food Network

Recipe adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction