Baking the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie: Every Ingredient, Every Decision

When it comes to making chocolate chip cookies,

you have to make a lot of decisions.

You need to choose flour, sugar, leaveners, fat, chocolate,

and additions for how it all comes together.

Some of these ingredients are going

to give you the perfect chewy bite

while others may mainly you feeling a bit disappointed.

I'm Natasha Pickowicz, pastry chef and cookbook author

and today you're going to see every decision that I make

for the perfect chocolate chip cookies.

First, let's talk about flour.

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What makes a great flour

for a chocolate chip cookie is something that's unbleached,

has tons of great flavor, and is fine.

This is the classic Gold Medal All Purpose.

It's bleached and it's enriched

which means that they are removing nutrients

from the wheat and adding it back in artificially after.

So we don't need this.

[buzzer sounds] Cake flour,

you want a cake flour for something with kind

of a fine tender crumb, but here we're actually looking

for a chewier more sturdy crumb.

[buzzer sounds]

Nature's Promise, this is an almond flour.

So your nut flours don't have wheat in them.

They don't have gluten

so they're not gonna provide the right kind

of texture in the final cookie.

[buzzer sounds]

This is the King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour.

Whole wheat means that it's higher

in fiber because it still has the bran

and germ attached to the wheat, so it's gonna suck

up a lot more moisture in your cookie dough

which means the cookie won't be that moist or tender.

So I don't wanna use this.

[buzzer sounds] This is the King Arthur

Unbleached All Purpose Flour,

my go-to flour for cookie baking.

It doesn't have any additives to it.

It hasn't been bleached.

It is literally just ground wheat.

So this is really the best thing

for consistent baking for a perfect chocolate chip cookie.

I choose this as the foundation for my cookie dough.

This is the Bob's Red Mill Organic Buckwheat Flour.

Buckwheat flour has an incredible earthy flavor.

When used in small amounts,

it is the perfect counterpoint for other rich

and interesting flavors that are gonna go

into our chocolate chip cookie dough.

So what I'm gonna do to make this chocolate chip cookie

taste even better is toast our flour

before we mix the dough.

Toasting any flour is actually going to coax

out even more flavor.

Throw it in a low cool oven,

about 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 12 to 15 minutes

or until it smells absolutely amazing.

So my decision is buckwheat flour

and unbleached all purpose flour.

Now let's look at some sugars.

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When I'm picking a sugar for a chocolate chip cookie,

I'm looking for flavor, I'm looking for moisture,

I'm looking for sweetness and texture.

This is the Wholesome Organic Coconut Sugar.

It has a great toasty butterscotchy flavor

but it lacks the moisture [buzzer sounds]

to make a great chocolate chip cookie dough.

This is glucose syrup.

A glucose syrup is going to make the cookie spread too much

because it has too much water content in it.

[buzzer sounds] This is Domino

light brown sugar, with light brown sugar,

they get there by adding molasses into regular cane sugar

so the flavor isn't as deep or intense.

This texture is too fine actually to use

for a chocolate chip cookie

[buzzer sounds]

and light brown is just not as intense

or as yummy as the dark brown sugar.

This is the Domino dark brown sugar, very similar

to a light brown sugar, but just more of that molasses added

in to get you a darker, richer kind of flavor.

Again, I think the texture of this is too fine to use

in a chocolate chip cookie,

[buzzer sounds]

so I don't want this either.

This is the Wholesome Organic Fair Trade Dark Brown Sugar.

It has like a beautiful sparkly look,

an incredibly rich flavor that feels very complex

and nuanced and the texture of it is like more coarse.

So I think it's going to hydrate our dough perfectly.

People love to debate if organic is really necessary

when you're shopping for your ingredients.

When it comes to dark brown sugar, it matters a ton.

This is organic, this is not organic.

The aroma of the organic dark brown sugar is

so much more intense

and the texture is like, it couldn't be more different.

This is drier, much finer.

This is damper, it's more plush.

This is clearly like a way better, more superior ingredient.

And in a chocolate chip cookie where brown sugar is adding

so much flavor and texture into the final cookie,

it really matters that you go organic.

This is the Domino Granulated Sugar.

This is like my all purpose flour of sugars.

This is what's gonna help the cookie spread enough.

The brown sugar gives you great flavor.

The cane sugar is going to help

with the texture of the cookie.

So this is what I choose,

Domino Granulated Cane Sugar

and Wholesome Organic Dark Brown Sugar.

Next, let's pick how these cookies will rise.

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When you're making a chocolate chip cookie,

the leavener is going to be the thing that activates

the network of gluten and sugar and fat

to hold air inside of it

which will let it be tender and chewy in the final product.

This is a Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast.

This is actually dehydrated yeast

plus additives that allow it to work immediately.

Active dry yeast has a flavor to it.

There's a tang to it that I don't always want in a cookie.

[buzzer sounds] Active dry yeast is not it.

This is sourdough starter.

Sourdough starter is great for adding flavor

but when you're talking about a chocolate chip cookie,

a sourdough is actually going to add too much acidity

and strong flavor to your cookie

which is gonna overpower some of these other flavors.

[buzzer sounds] So I don't want this either.

This is cream of tartar.

Cream of tartar is mostly used to create lift

and structure for whipping eggs.

It helps the egg white stay stiff

and retain the air that's whipped inside

of it it afterwards.

But we want a cookie with a crumb that has chew

so we don't need to use this.

[buzzer sounds]

This is your classic Arm and Hammer baking soda.

Baking soda is crucial in the rising

of baked goods that are high in fat and moisture.

The great thing

about baking soda is a little bit goes a long way.

You need so little to do the job

that you won't be able to taste it at all.

Eggs I think are critical

to a delicious chocolate chip cookie.

They add richness and they add moisture.

They're able to incorporate tons of air into them

and they can dissolve things like sugars inside of them.

So we're gonna dissolve the sugars directly

into these whipping eggs.

This is the base of our cookie dough is eggs and sugar.

So for leaveners, my decision are whipped eggs

and sugar mixture and baking soda.

And now we gotta talk about fat.

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The fat should be rich,

it should have great flavor, and it should be able

to hold air inside of it when you add other ingredients.

Let's start with this is just vegetable oil.

An oil or a fat in liquid form is not going

to be the right thing for a chocolate chip cookie.

[buzzer sounds] It's too high in moisture.

The cookie's gonna spread too much.

Plain vegetable oil has a greasy mouthfeel

on the palette when you're baking with it

so I don't wanna use vegetable oil.

This is Crisco All Vegetable Shortening.

This is perfect for kind of creating flaky pie doughs

but we're not really looking for that texture.

We want kind of a chewy crumb.

While it has the same appearance as butter,

it has no flavor and it's not gonna be good

in a chocolate chip cookie. [buzzer sounds]

So here is a stick of sweet cream salted butter.

I don't want a butter company

to decide how much salt is going to go into my cookie.

[buzzer sounds]

This is an American unsalted sweet cream butter.

In its solid state, you can whip and aerate it

which is gonna incorporate air

into the cookie dough, which will allow us

to easily emulsify other heavier ingredients into it later.

It has a richness, a sweetness to it.

So this is the one, but we're gonna do something else

to make it taste even better in a chocolate chip cookie.

Brown butter is the process of boiling

off the excess water in a stick of butter, so much so

that you're actually toasting the milk solids that are

in the butter and caramelizing them.

You can just add sticks of butter

to a pot and once the mixture melts down,

it's going to begin to boil furiously.

And those big bubbles are the water evaporating

like boiling water.

So once you see those milk solids are kind of like the color

of a caramel sauce, the butter is done,

so you wanna make sure you're transferring it

into a heat proof bowl.

As soon as it's ready, we're gonna put this into the fridge.

We actually need it to re-solidify so we can blow air

into it through emulsifying it with other ingredients.

So this is the one.

Chilled brown butter and now

for everyone's favorite ingredient, chocolate.

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How do you pick the perfect chocolate

for a chocolate chip cookie?

You want great flavor,

you want the right sweetness, and the perfect shape.

Here's a classic, Nestle Toll House.

This is called a morsel

because the first ingredient is not even chocolate,

it's sugar.

This to me is too processed.

It's not gonna melt right in the cookie,

it's gonna be too sweet.

[buzzer sounds] This is not the right thing.

This is a Guittard Gourmet White Baking Chips.

So the word chocolate is not even appearing

in this phrase because it's technically not chocolate.

It's like a mixture of sugar, cacao butter, and milk.

Again, too sweet for a chocolate chip cookie.

M&M's, classic candy, it's too sweet,

[buzzer sounds] you wanna avoid candy.

Here is a 100% real chocolate mini chips.

So semi-sweet, semi-sweet I like.

However, this is in a mini chip form and this is where size

and shape of chocolate becomes really important.

I personally like, am looking for chocolate that is not

in little polka dots but is kind of in thin sheets.

So when you bite into the cookie,

you're kind of getting that chocolate that's sort of layered

into the cookie dough.

These kind of chocolate chips are not going to do that.

[buzzer sounds] This is Guittard chocolate.

This is the 70%, which is bittersweet.

And then this is 64%, which is semi-sweet.

So this is gonna be a little bit sweeter.

This is more like a classic dark chocolate.

I know this is a high quality chocolate

because the first ingredient is cacao beans.

When you're making a chocolate chip cookie,

you really wanna kind of go

for the best chocolate that you can possibly get.

This is the Toll House morsels

and our Guittard bars, just thrown in a hot oven

for a minute and you can see that

because so many extra ingredients are added

to the morsels to preserve this chip shape,

they don't even really like melt that well.

But here you can see this beautiful deep shine

to the chocolate when it's melted

which means that when the cookie is warm and hot,

it'll be absolutely delicious and melty on the palate.

But as the cookie cools, the chocolate will re-harden

and it'll still have that great snapping crunch.

I like a mixture of semi-sweet and bittersweet.

We're gonna actually chop this by hand

and you can see you get these bigger pieces which are nice,

all different shapes, and then these beautiful fine,

almost like a chocolate curls, shavings dust.

And this is so nice because when it goes into the cookie,

it kind of like melts imperceptibly into the dough.

So every bite you get feels super harmonious and perfect.

So this is what I choose,

semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate.

And last but not least, a few extra additions.

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When I'm looking to add the final finishing touches,

I'm looking for that final layer of seasoning

and what will drive home

that classic chocolate chip cookie flavor.

This is a Cafe Bustelo Instant Coffee Classic Pairing

With Chocolate, but in this case a coffee flavor

is really gonna distract I think

from the warming notes we're looking

for in a chocolate chip cookie.

[buzzer sounds] Salt, a very important sort

of invisible ingredient

in our chocolate chip cookie.

We need something that is not perceptible

to our palate but will sort of balance these things

out and almost rein back their sweetness and their richness.

This is my favorite baking salt of all time.

This is Diamond Crystal, this is an industry favorite.

It's beloved for a reason.

This is their kosher salt flakes.

It's quite coarse in the hand.

They dissolve perfectly into doughs.

They have a great flavor that it feels weird

to say this salt's not too salty,

but this salt is not as salty as other salt.

This is a great one to use, yet another kind of salt.

This is Maldon Sea Salt Flakes.

We're going to add salt

into the cookie dough to kind of season the entire dough.

We're also going to add finishing salt on top

of our cookie to add that final like punch of flavor.

So I love this salt for finishing

because it's a very soft salt.

You can kind of pinch it smaller,

it can kind of crumble, it can kind of flake.

So it's perfect for finishing on cookies

because of how soft it is.

You cannot have a chocolate chip cookie without vanilla.

This is clear imitation vanilla extract.

There's no vanilla in this at all.

It is just kind of chemicals developed

to kind of taste like vanilla.

For me, you're not getting those distinct flavors

of vanilla that make chocolate chip cookies so incredible.

So I don't think we're gonna use this.

[buzzer sounds] Once we get

into actual vanilla,

a great vanilla bean can cost $30 a piece.

This is probably not the right thing to put

into a chocolate chip cookie.

[buzzer sounds] It just disappears

into the cookie dough.

Similarly, this is the Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste,

because we're making a cookie dough that is gonna be

pocked with chocolate,

that's gonna have buckwheat flour in it,

the flex of the vanilla bean caviar

are gonna just be lost in this.

[buzzer sounds] This is a Heilala

pure vanilla extract.

This vanilla extract is kind of the essence of these pods

but sort of preserved in an alcohol.

So you're also getting a little bit

of that tang and burn from the alcohol

in the cookie dough and a little bit of extra liquid.

So we want that like hydrating liquid

in the extract to go in the dough.

This is the flavor that's gonna create

that unmistakable classic chocolate chip cookie.

So my final cookie additions are Maldon sea salt flakes,

kosher salt, and pure vanilla extract.

And now it's time to make this into a dough.

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So first thing, I always mix together my dry ingredients

before I do anything else.

And you want the brown butter to be re-chilled

and then re-softened right into the mixer.

It's going to lighten and color and get pale and fluffy.

This is going to allow all the other ingredients

to emulsify together and give you that perfect texture

with the final cookie.

You're really looking for the brown butter

to kind of be white and creamy

and almost look like frosting.

So while the mixer is on, I'll add my egg mixture,

and we'll add our pure vanilla extracts.

I'm gonna under-mix this on purpose

because once you add flour to a wet substance,

any action you give it is going to develop gluten.

So here's our dry mixture, mix that by hand a bit.

And then the last thing

for our chocolate chip cookie dough is the chocolate.

We have our bittersweet and our semi-sweet,

all those great mixed up sizes,

the shards, which you're really gonna be able

to see in the dough once we mix it all in, that's it.

Just once or twice around the mixer.

We have our dough made.

It all tastes better when it has a chance

to kind of come together.

So I'll just kind of wrap it in plastic,

pat it into a little block, and then put this in the fridge,

overnight, two days, whatever,

and then it can be baked off.

And now let's shape and bake.

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You wanna set your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

You want an aluminum half sheet baking tray,

a piece of parchment paper,

and some kind of non-stick cooking spray.

I like to work with dough that is chilled

while I shape it so it doesn't stick to my hands.

And then I let it come to room temperature

on the baking sheet before I bake them off.

That's where you get the best ratio

of chewy on the center, crisp on the outside.

So I'll just use a bench scraper instead of a cookie scoop.

And I'm looking for about 70 gram balls.

It's about a quarter cup each and then just roll it

with your hands into a ball right on the sheet tray.

You wanna just make sure you're giving all

of your cookies five inches of space

because they're gonna spread in the oven

and you can use the heel of your hand

to kind of press them down into little pucks.

Last thing they get before they go in the oven,

those final shards of chocolate.

That way you see them as soon as they come out of the oven.

So just a few pieces on top

of each one and then just the smallest pinch

of flaky sea salt on top of each one.

Adding it before they go in the oven helps the salt stick

to the cookies better and that's it.

They're ready to go in the oven.

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These cookies are fresh out of the oven, they're piping hot.

Just give it a bang on the counter

and that kind of forces the cookies to fall a little bit

because all the air that we whipped into the eggs,

into the butter causes the cookies

to souffle a bit in the oven.

And once they cool, they will fall

which is how you get this sort of trademark crinkly edges

which translate to incredible texture.

The surface of the cookie even has a shine to it,

which is something that you see on like the top

of a perfect brownie.

And that's what happens when you dissolve the sugar

into the eggs.

You get this like beautifully, satiny, crackly finish

that is just like indescribable.

The like pools of chocolate

on top are glossy and they look inviting.

The cookies look darker than a normal chocolate chip cookie

because they have buckwheat flour in them.

It's got these crisp wrinkly edges,

pools of melty chocolate,

but you get chocolate in every bite

because you have those kind of

like little pieces that are in the dough

and these bigger pools of melty chocolate.

Mm, the brown butter is so nutty, it's so fragrant.

The cookie doesn't feel greasy or heavy.

It just feels light but chewy.

You get that kind of butterscotchy caramel

from the dark brown sugar, the classic pure vanilla extract,

little bit of kosher salt seasoning the dough.

It's just the best cookie ever.

Everybody has their own favorite way

of making chocolate chip cookies, but this is my way

of building in lots of fun little strategies

to really elevate this classic to like something

that you will never forget.

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