Alright you guys. I’m pretty sure this is it. Like, the one. The cookie recipe I’ve been searching for. This Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour is seriously perfection.
Call me crazy, and I know we’re only 16 (with 36 left to go) recipes into the Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment, but I’m honestly tempted to look no farther! This recipe from King Arthur Flour is everything I’m looking for…
Let’s talk about qualifiers for a perfect chocolate chip cookie:
This recipe has come highly recommended from bloggers and home bakers all over the place, and I was super excited to try it. If you don’t know it yet, Chocolate Chip Cookies are my jam. And any CCC recipe that comes this highly recommended puts me over the moon 🙂
And they’re totally worth the recommendation. But first, I have to tell you the pains I took to get my hands on the original recipe for these guys…
Do you guys remember the Neiman Marcus Cookies? They’re famous for having a recipe that cost Neiman Marcus patrons $250 to acquire.
Well, this recipe didn’t cost me $250. But it did cost me 39.99. Which, you know… is kind of equally annoying.
I found lots of recipes for these cookies from other bloggers. But I’ve been really committed through this experiment to follow each original recipe exactly to the letter. And I didn’t want to go off of another blogger’s version of the recipe in case they had changed a little something here or there.
So I found the original recipe on the Cook’s Illustrated website… available only to their paying subscribers. But they had a 30-day free trial option– provided you entered your credit card information, of course…which I did. I figured I’d just cancel once I got the recipe.
But then I thought… what’s so great about this site that you have to pay 39.99/month for access to their recipes?? Maybe I’ll just try it out for the month and see if I find any other really cool recipes.
You can guess the rest. I put a reminder to cancel up on the white board in my office, and Emma covered it up with some of her artwork… and today the subscription fee came out of my account.
And if you were wondering… nope. I haven’t re-visited the site since that first fateful day that I nabbed this chocolate chip cookie recipe. Not even once.
But I guess the silver lining to to this story is that we can all rest easy knowing that this is for sure the original and exact Cook’s Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies!
So I bet you’re all wondering… was the 39.99 worth it?
Well, in all honesty, I would have been just as happy eating AllRecipes.com #1 Ranked Chocolate Chip Cookies or Food Network’s Simple Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipes that I didn’t have to pay for). But I will concede that this Cook’s Illustrated recipe is pretty darn good! It possibly broke into my top 5 favorites, so I guess that’s saying something (as we are now 15 recipes into the Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment!!!). I love the flavor you get by using more brown sugar than most recipes call for. And by melting the butter and adding an extra egg yolk, this recipe yields a chewier cookie than most. Overall: very yummy!!
However… please feel free to donate 39.99 to Something Swanky each time you visit for the recipe 😉
Welcome to recipe post number TWELVE in this Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment. Admittedly, the experiment is going a little slower than expected since it’s really turned into more of an every-other-week thing rather than a weekly thing. But, no complaints here! Chocolate chip cookies are my personal favorite dessert after all, so I don’t mind dragging it out a bit 😉
For those of you who are just tuning in… I’m on a quest to find the most perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe ever– even if it takes me a year’s worth of experimenting! So far, my favorites have been:
DoubleTree Hotel Chocolate Chip Cookies– these have been my husband’s favorites too. They are chock full of chips, oats, and walnuts. But my favorite part about these cookies is that the oats and walnuts are not overly detectable. They are blended and chopped very finely, so that they just add a lot of girth to each bite rather than chunks. Love, love, LOVE!
NY Times Quintessential Chocolate Chip Cookies– these are another family favorite. You get a big mouthful of chocolate in every bite of these, which makes them absolutely to die for!
AllRecipes.com #1 CCC– I loved the simplicity of these cookies. It’s basically the same recipe I’ve been using for years, and there’s a reason I’ve held on to it for so long– it’s a good, solid, basic recipe with very little fuss and a lot of great taste.
I enjoyed the recipe from AllRecipes.com so much, that I decided I’d try a recipe from another user-submission-based site: Food.com. While this recipe didn’t have as many reviews as the one from AllRecipes, it did have a 100% positive rating with TONS of comments from people who tried and loved the recipe.
For those of you who are new to Something Swanky (or maybe you’ve just missed these posts), I’m working on a Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment that basically boils down to me trying as many chocolate chip cookie recipes as I can get my hands on (I’m shooting for 52, 1 recipe per week for a year)! And then, of course, culminating the experiment with an ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe to top all others… at least that’s the idea 😉
If you’d like to see all the other recipes I’ve tried so far, click here.
Today’s recipe comes from Allrecipes.com. For years before Pinterest and before I started blogging, Allrecipes.com was my go-to for recipes. I always liked that you could check out ratings and reviews from other people who had tried the recipe.
Of course, these days, I typically search Pinterest or a reliable blog for a recipe instead. But I’ll still glance through allrecipes.com from time to time. I think those recipes that have a 4-5 star rating with tons of reviewers are almost always worth taking the time to check out, and I definitely thought it would be worthwhile to include their top-rated Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe in my experiment.
I was pretty pleased to find that this recipe closely resembles my current go-to recipe that I’ve used for years, right down to dissolving the baking soda before mixing. I really, really liked these. I felt like the buttery/salty flavors were perfectly in tune with the rest of the cookie flavors, and the texture was just right too– soft and chewy (maybe even slightly underbaked) in the middle, with a good crunch at the edges.
With a 4.5 star rating out of over 6.5K reviews, I’d say this cookie is well-deserving of it’s rank!
As you may know, chocolate chip cookies are my very favorite dessert of all time. As evidenced by my quest for the most perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe…
Given my more-than-slight obsession with all things CCC, I was incredibly excited to try out this recipe for Biscoff Chocolate Chip Cookies for a couple of reasons. First… Biscoff. That’s enough in itself to be excited over! But also– I’m excited because this recipe comes from the first cookbook of a good friend of mine here in the blogging world: The Biscoff Cookie & Spread Cookbook by Katrina Bahl (In Katrina’s Kitchen).
And let me tell you folks, there doesn’t seem to be a bad recipe in this book. It has literally taken me weeeeeeeeeeks to decide which recipe I wanted to make share with you guys. The Double Chocolate Biscoff Bread, Biscoff Sheet Cake, and Biscoff Cinnamon Rolls were all heavy contenders. And then my husband and I went back and forth over the Biscoff Cloud Cookies and the Biscoff Chocolate Chip Cookies forever– it all looks amazing!
I finally made the executive decision on the chocolate chip cookies, figuring they’re a perfect addition to my Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment anyway.
It was good decision making on my part. Biscoff and chocolate chip cookies definitely belong together.
With the craziness of the holiday season, I definitely dropped the ball on The Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment for a few weeks. But you can dry your tears, I’m back to the grind and bringing you another famous chocolate chip cookie recipe today!
Just a reminder– I’m attempting to find 52 different chocolate chips cookie recipes (theoretically, a year’s worth of recipes if I did one per week) and test them all out to find either the best chocolate chip cookie recipe already in existence, OR to use this experience to take the things I learned and loved about each of my favorite recipes and turn them into one super cookie!
Today’s test subject: American’s Test Kitchen Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Basically, the unique thing about these cookies is the use of browned butter. Browning the butter creates a deep, toffee-like flavor that I really liked and definitely sets these apart from other CC cookies I’ve tried.
Soft chocolate chip cookie bars bursting with peppermint flavor and bits of crushed candy canes are a festive way to celebrate the season.
Hi I’m Emily from It Bakes Me Happy and I am super excited to be a contributor here on Something Swanky! Today and in the coming year I will be sharing my love of brownies and bar desserts for your sweet satisfaction.
Since it’s December I wanted to share an easy and delicious treat you can add to your holiday line up and it’s perfect for gifting if you like giving the gift of baked goods. These soft chocolate chip cookie bars are packed with bits of crushed peppermint candy and topped with a drizzle of chocolate. Plus they look way more fancy than the effort they require to make, so you’ll look like a pro when you serve them to family and friends.
This stuff is one of my very favorite Christmas treats! It’s completely and utterly addicting, which is why it’s earned the nickname Christmas Crack. Have you tried it?
It’s essentially toffee bathed crackers, slathered in chocolate and almonds. And for those of us who aren’t so great in the candy-making department, it’s an especially great recipes to keep handy, because it’s SO easy! And I think cracker toffee tastes even better than regular toffee. I like the cracker crunch and the extra bit of buttery saltiness.
I have to confess something… I’ve never been much of a gingerbread fan. I mean, it’s always been okaaaaaay. But I’ve just never understood why anyone would want to eat gingerbread when there are so many other incredible holiday treats to be had?! Like chocolate pie and peanut butter truffles and peppermint cheesecake!
I always just thought, Gingerbread? What’s the point?
That was until I tried this Gingerbread Cookie Bark. It’s changed everything.
Sorry to have missed a couple of weeks of chocolate chip cookies! Between Thanksgiving and getting sick, I had to put the experiment on the back burner.
But today I’m back with another famous chocolate chip cookie! Is anyone else a Chips Ahoy junkie like me?? Oh man, I can tear my way through a package of Chips Ahoy before I know what’s hit me and not feel a thing. Same thing with Oreos. And those Keebler elf fudge cookie sandwiches.
Seriously. Hashtag cookie probs.
Which means it’s probably not a great thing that I can now make my own Chips Ahoys at home, without even a trip to the store standing between me and a really unflattering cookie demolition.
