It's harder to achieve the perfect
chocolate chip cookie than you might think.
So we made over 10 different batches
to see how every common cookie mistake
affects your bake.
This is the perfect cookie,
the original Nestle recipe.
The batter makes for a pale and fluffy round scoop
that when baked at 375 degrees for 11 minutes
melts slowly and evenly...
before turning light brown in the center
with a crisp, dark brown rim.
The cookie is soft and breaks apart evenly
to reveal a chewy, buttery interior
and even distribution of chips.
The cookie leaves a sizeable amount of grease in its wake,
which may seem gross, but actually
helps the cookie stay chewy and soft.
It breaks, but it doesn't crumble under pressure.
What happens when you follow the exact same recipe
but don't preheat the oven?
Since the oven starts cold,
the batter melts about the same way as the original,
but much, much slower,
never allowing it to finish baking.
So it breaks apart like wet Play-Doh.
The cookie comes out of the oven
the very same shade it went in.
Sometimes you just don't have time to soften the butter
and you toss those cold blocks in anyway,
making it harder for your mixer to break down the sticks,
leaving chunks of butter throughout the dough.
The result is a paler cookie on the inside,
but darker on the rim.
Without even fat distribution, the cookie is denser
and doesn't have the satisfying chewiness...
leaving only small sections of grease.
It could be tempting to add a little extra butter,
since the fat is what gives cookies
that coveted soft texture.
When baked at 375 degrees for 11 minutes,
the cookies melt much faster
and spread wider than the original,
creating a cookie that is much darker in color
with crispy edges and an appearance of less chips.
The extra fat makes the cookie so soft and flat
it begins to fall apart.
And it's full of visible air pockets.
Messing with the amount of flour
will lead to two completely different bakes.
Throw in a little extra flour,
and good luck getting the chips in there.
Without enough moisture, the dough is thick like clay
and struggles to hold together.
With less flour, the cookies look pretty viable at first,
but without enough structure,
they spread out in the last three minutes.
Whereas the ones with extra flour stay in place
and begin browning almost immediately.
Out of the oven,
the cookies lacking flour are misshapen
and a dark brown across the whole cookie,
almost to the point of looking but not tasting burnt.
And their counterpart are almost burnt
in the center of the cookie, with very dark edges.
With more flour, the cookies are crumbly,
and breaking them apart is akin to a small, dense scone.
With less flour, the center of the cookie
stays pretty chewy,
but the edges are crispy and fragile.
And without the chips in there, the cookie is wafer thin,
spreading to almost 5 inches in diameter.
Undermixing it leads to all kinds of issues.
Properly mixing the batter
ensures even distribution of ingredients.
In the oven, the dough melts slowly and unevenly,
creating a pale cookie
with uneven browning across the surface.
The cookie is chewy and fragile in some parts,
crisp in others, and the final shape is oblong
due to the fact the cookie wasn't allowed to rise evenly.
Throwing everything in the bowl at one time
and hitting the on button
might sound like the easiest way
to get cookies baked and in your mouth,
but it actually drastically overmixes the dough,
leading to cookies that almost immediately melt
and overspread in the oven.
The color is gray with large air pockets scattered around.
The cookie is superthin,
and the texture is sticky to the point of tacky.
Overall, it was one of the biggest cookies of the batch.
Eggs are not only the binding ingredient,
they're also the prime source of moisture in a cookie.
So leaving them out means a dry dough
that's impossible to stick together
well enough to get a round scoop.
In the oven, they further crumble and dry out...
making for an uneven, grainy mess
that's not fully cooked in the center
and easily scatters to bits.
Baking powder and baking soda might seem
like similar ingredients, but they're actually not.
In the oven, the cookies puff up to more of a dome shape
and create a darker rim around the edges of the cookie.
The texture is less chewy and more airy, like a cake,
but with a sticky, tacky finish.
Baking powder also has a more chemically taste
than baking soda, leading to a less sweet cookie.
Using no baking soda at all means you're relying on
the flour to be the only leavening agent.
The cookies become pale on the inside.
They lose that chewy texture in the middle,
becoming more dense, less buttery, and more fragile.
Doubling the amount of chocolate
lessens the amount of batter per cookie.
So there's less spread in the oven...
creating a slightly taller cookie
that's also a bit smaller in diameter.
Due to the extra fat from the chips,
it's also much greasier, making it the gooiest,
chewiest cookie of the batch.
If you're trying to switch up the classic recipe,
there's a lot that can go left.
But with a couple of these tweaks,
you might just find your ideal cookie.