Reading the history of how the Nestle Toll-House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe sprung into kitchen consciousness in the 1930’s is like reading a culinary Hallmark card. Unfortunately, a single Hallmark card is seldom appropriate for all occasions. What I’d like to do in this post is see what I can do to make this famous cookie recipe into a recipe template from which you can bake your chocolate chip cookie dream-come-true.
Let me begin by enumerating three problems going into the kitchen with cookies on my mind:
Problem 1 – Who is the arbiter of chocolate cookie perfection? We have the Nestle recipe found on the backs of its bags of chocolate chips – it has survived nearly 80 years in more-or-less its current form so it must have something going for it. Meanwhile we have countless variations on that theme to be found in cookbooks, websites, and blogs aplenty – if the Toll-House recipe is the gold standard, then how can there be so many copycats claiming to represent chocolate chip cookie perfection. Do they bring something new and useful to the table? How can you tell?
Problem 2 – I believe that diversity in expectations for chocolate chip cookies has made it impossible to define what “the perfect cookie” must be – people like what they like. Chocolate chip cookie fandom in the 21st century seems to be divided into three primary camps: (1) puffy and soft, (2) thin and firm, & (3) chewy edges with soft centers. Does Goldilocks get to determine what is just right or do we need to hand cookie control back over to the different-needs-bears?
Problem 3 – I know from experience that the Toll-House recipe, as written, makes more of a cake-y than a cookie. I have never been fully satisfied with the results of cookies made the Toll-House way. Even a brief survey of other writings on chocolate chip cookies will reveal that my opinion is not unique. Can we honor the spirit of the historic landmark of a recipe while making judicious alterations?
So…here’s my:
Goal – I want to work-out an all-purpose chocolate cookie template that can be easily adapted to bake cookies with different textures for people with differing cookie preferences.
Let’s start from scratch – literally and figuratively. A chocolate chip cookie is, technically, a butterscotch-y cookie that is baked from a cookie dough that has been garnished (or adorned or studded or embellished) with chocolate chips. And possibly nuts. Chocolate chip cookies are cookies WITH chocolate chips. And possibly nuts.
The primary (i.e. weighty) components of the cookie dough are: flour, brown sugar, sugar, butter, and egg. Vanilla and salt are added for flavor. Baking soda is added for leavening.
I want to start with then depart from the ingredient measurements in the Toll-House recipe. The Toll-House recipe uses:
Flour – 2 1/4 cups
Brown Sugar – 3/4 cup
Sugar – 3/4 cup
Butter – 1 cup
Eggs – 2 large
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 2 cups
Possibly Nuts – 1 cup
Sacrilege #1 – Right out of the gate, two eggs might not be the best starting point. After a comparative analysis of many available recipes, I decided to reel-in the eggs a little bit to start out with. I liked the recommendation of America’s Test Kitchen – their take on the classic cookie uses a whole egg + an additional yolk. Their reasoning was sound and reflects the sentiment of numerous recipes I consulted.
I separated the ingredients this way because my first step in being able to successfully manipulate this recipe is to understand the relationships among the primary ingredients. I’ll do that by rewriting the recipe using Baker’s Percentages – I’m going to convert the primary ingredients to ratios of the total weight of flour used in the recipe. To do this, I need the weights of these ingredients – I’ll keep the vanilla, salt, and baking soda in teaspoons.
Flour – 10.75 oz.
Brown Sugar – 5 oz.
Sugar – 5.5 oz.
Butter – 8 oz.
Eggs – now reduced to 1 egg + 1 yolk – 2.6 oz.
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
Dividing each of the ingredient weights by 10.75 oz. gives me the Baker’s Percentages:
Flour – 10.75/10.75 = 100%
Brown Sugar – 5/10.75 = 46.5%
Sugar – 5.5/10.75 = 51.2%
Butter – 8/10.75 = 74.8%
Eggs – 2.6/10.75 = 24.2%
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
When I look at these percentages, I notice that the brown sugar and the sugar are each weighing in at about 50% of the flour weight, the butter is weighing in at about 75% of the flour weight, and the eggs are weighing in at about 25% of the flour weight. So, after a single well-advised sacrilege, what this recipe communicates to me so far is that the ingredients in the Toll-House recipe are derived from some very simple basic relationships:
Flour – 100% (10.75 oz.)
Brown Sugar – 50%
Sugar – 50%
Butter – 75%
Eggs – 25%
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
That would be an OK template, but I want to make one more simplification – looks like I just can’t leave anything alone.
Sacrilege #2 – Since I like to scale my heavier ingredients, 10.75 might not be the best starting point. To simplify my weights and measures, I decided to start off by shaving-off that “.75 oz.” and go with an even 10 oz. of flour. The Toll-House recipe is better engineered for measuring cups – I’m going for one based on scaling ingredients. We can also call this a shout-out to the OCD crowd and people everywhere who dislike keeping up with lots of decimals.
So I started with the ingredients from the back of the Nestle’s bag…two sacrileges later and this is what MY list of ingredients looks like:
Flour – 100% – 10 oz.
Brown Sugar – 50% – 5 oz.
Sugar – 50% – 5 oz.
Butter – 75% – 7.5 oz. (= 15 Tbsp. = 2 sticks minus 1 Tbsp.)
Eggs – 25% – keeping 1 egg + 1 yolk
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
Now that I have generated a fairly straightforward ingredients template, let’s examine the mixing and baking strategy.
The Toll-House recipe instructions are as follows: (1) combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, (2) beat softened butter, sugars, and vanilla until creamy, (3) add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, (4) gradually beat in the flour mixture, (5) fold in your chocolate chips (and possibly nuts) by hand, (6) drop by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet, (7) bake at 375° F for 9-11 minutes.
OK, let’s pause for a Baker’s Fact: There are three general categories of leavening agents (the things that cause baked goods to rise). (1) Biological Agents – living organisms like yeast that produce carbon dioxide gas through fermentation – this gas is what leavens yeast breads. (2) Chemical Agents – powders like baking soda and baking powder that produce carbon dioxide through a chemical acid/base reaction. & (3) Physical Agents – bubbles of air are trapped in a batter or dough during a vigorous physical whisking or whipping or beating or creaming process – meringues are made by whipping air into egg whites and many cakes owe much of their lift to air trapped in butter and sugar through creaming.
Sacrilege #3 – Toss-out the creaming maneuver. Beating the softened butter with the sugar and adding the eggs one at a time is a classic cake batter maneuver. It whips air into the cookie dough and contributes to an undesirably cake-y texture in the cookies. Taking the lead of many professional bakers who have presented their arguments for how to approach this cookie, I decided to mix my dough using what is called the muffin method – instead of whipping air into the softened butter and sugar and egg and vanilla mixture, the butter is liquified (melted) and mixed with the sugar/egg/vanilla all at once. Leave out the physical leavening – the chemical leavening from the baking powder in the recipe is more than sufficient for providing what little lift we need to bake these cookies.
Sacrilege #4 – While the thought of scooping-out rounded tablespoons of dough and ordering them meticulously on a baking sheet might SEEM quaint, it is NOT quaint. When using a tablespoon to capture dough, it is very difficult to make uniform portions – uneven portions means uneven baking and inconsistent cookies. I also disagree with the portion size in general – such small dollops of dough are easy to overcook (and who the hell wants some 5-dozen micro-cookies?). I find that a #40 disher (a.k.a. scooper or ice-cream scoop thingie) works quite well for measuring dough – one heaping scoop is closer to 2 1/2 – 3 tablespoons.
My recipe instructions (revised by sacrilege) are as follows: (1) combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, (2) using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer with the egg beaters) mix the melted (but not hot) butter, sugars, vanilla, and eggs to thoroughly combine, (3) gradually beat in the flour mixture, (4) fold in your chocolate chips (and possibly nuts) by hand, (5) drop using a #40 disher onto ungreased cookie sheet (I’m a big fan of using parchment), (6) bake at 375° F for about 17 minutes.
Note – It is best to remove the cookies from the hot pan and allow them to cool on a rack – if you use parchment paper to line the baking sheets, you can simply slide the whole batch off the baking sheet and onto the cooling rack. Makes cleanup a breeze!
Here are the results of my Toll-House sacrilege:
Scaled: 6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips + 6 oz. white chocolate chips + 6 oz. pecan pieces
Scaled: 10 oz. flour (whisk in 1 tsp. salt + 1 tsp. baking soda)
Scaled: 5 oz. sugar + 5 oz. brown sugar (cooled melted butter on standby)
Scaled: 7.5 oz. butter added to the 10 oz. (total) of sugars
Mixing Bowl: sugars + butter + 1 tsp. vanilla + 1 egg + 1 yolk
Ingredients In Place
Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment – Ready to Go
Mix Until Thoroughly Combined – 1 minute
Flour Mixed In Slowly to Prevent Dust Cloud – 1 minute
Cookie Dough
Chocolate Chips and Pecan Pieces – Folded In by Hand
Using #40 Disher/Scoop
Cookies Evenly Spaced – 13 to a Sheet Pan
Detail
Two Sheet Pans – 26 Cookies – No Leftover Dough
375° F – 17 minutes
Edges Chewy – Soft Center
Got Milk?
——————
But we’re not done yet! What my adapted recipe gave me was the Goldilocks cookie – chewy edges with soft center – a great all-purpose middle-of-the-road cookie. What I want to do now is adapt this simple design to bake puffy/soft cookies and to bake thin/firm cookies. It turns out that I can do this by some judicious manipulation of the ingredients.
OK, let’s pause for a few more Baker’s Facts: (1) Sugars – increasing the proportion of granulated white sugar increases the crispness of your cookie – increasing the proportion of brown sugar increases the moistness/chewiness/softness of your cookie. (2) Egg Whites – contribute to a cake-y structure in cookies and add moisture to the dough – increasing the egg whites makes a more cake-y cookie – decreasing the egg whites makes a crisper cookie. (3) Butter – the fat from the butter controls how much the cookies spread during baking – increasing the fat makes the cookies spread-out more and results in a crisper/chewier cookie – decreasing the fat reduces the cookie spread and produces a thicker/softer cookie. & (4) Moisture – moister cookies are softer and drier cookies are crisper – some of the moisture content in your cookies can be manipulated simply by reducing or increasing the baking time.
So here are my adapted cookie recipes:
Soft/Puffy – increase brown sugar – decrease white sugar – decrease butter – add an egg white – bake less
Flour – 100% – 10 oz.
Brown Sugar – 75% – 7.5 oz.
Sugar – 25% – 2.5 oz.
Butter – 60% – 6 oz.
Eggs – 25% + extra white = 2 whole
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
(1) combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, (2) using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer with the egg beaters) mix the melted (but not hot) butter, sugars, vanilla, and eggs to thoroughly combine, (3) gradually beat in the flour mixture, (4) fold in your chocolate chips (and possibly nuts) by hand, (5) drop using a #40 disher onto ungreased cookie sheet (I’m a big fan of using parchment), (6) bake at 375° F for about 15 minutes.
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Soft/Puffy – Detail 1[/caption]
Soft/Puffy – Detail 2
Soft/Puffy – Cross-Section
Crisper/Chewier – decrease brown sugar – increase white sugar – increase butter – remove an egg white – bake longer
Note – I didn’t decrease the brown sugar here as dramatically as I decreased the white sugar in the previous variation – I wanted to insure that there was sufficient brown sugar present in the recipe to contribute to a suitably butterscotch-y taste in the baked cookie.
Flour – 100% – 10 oz.
Brown Sugar – 35% – 3.5 oz.
Sugar – 65% – 6.5 oz.
Butter – 90% – 9 oz.
Eggs – 25% – extra white = 2 yolks
Vanilla, Salt, Baking Soda – 1 tsp. each
Chocolate Chips – 12 oz.
Possibly Nuts – 6 oz.
(1) combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, (2) using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer with the egg beaters) mix the melted (but not hot) butter, sugars, vanilla, and eggs to thoroughly combine, (3) gradually beat in the flour mixture, (4) fold in your chocolate chips (and possibly nuts) by hand, (5) drop using a #40 disher onto ungreased cookie sheet (I’m a big fan of using parchment), (6) bake at 375° F for about 19 minutes.
Crisper/Chewier – Detail
Crisper/Chewier – Cross-Section
Note – When these cookies are hot out of the oven, they will be pliable and soft – they will firm-up and become crisp as they cool.
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