20 Expert Tips For Baking The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Want To Bake Like Mrs. Fields?
Chocolate chip cookies are America's most treasured confection. There's almost nothing more comforting than biting into a crispy on the outside, soft, gooey, and moist on the inside cookie. However, even the most seasoned bakers have trouble achieving this level of perfection. Despite the seemingly simple recipe, it actually takes a high level of precision to create an exceptional cookie. Here are 20 tips for mastering the chocolate chip cookie, from expert bakers who have gone through the trial-and-error phase so you don't have to.
Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash
1. Use High-Quality Ingredients
Like with any recipe, the result is only going to taste as good as the initial components. If you choose low-grade chocolate, flour, or eggs, you're only setting yourself up for failure.
2. Weigh Your Ingredients
In baking, precision is your friend. You're never going to get as accurate a measurement with measuring cups as you would with a scale.
3. Don't Skip The Salt
Even though cookies are sweet, not savory, salt is still a crucial component. It brings out the chocolate flavor and balances the sweetness. In addition to the salt inside the dough, consider a sprinkle of chunky salt like fleur de sel when your cookies come out of the oven.
4. Don't Over-Mix
While you want to cream your wet ingredients thoroughly, you only want to mix your dry ingredients so they're combined. Over-mixing at this step will result in tough cookies.
5. Use Room Temperature Butter
You might feel tempted to use cold butter when you're in a rush. However, cold butter prevents proper creaming and results in a denser cookie. If you want them to be light, fluffy, and soft, use room temperature butter.
6. Use A Mix Of White & Brown Sugar
For best results, use a combination of white and brown sugar in your cookies. Brown sugar brings softness and caramel flavor, while white sugar makes it crispy and helps it spread.
7. Chill The Dough
Always chill the dough for at least an hour, but ideally 24 hours, before baking your cookies. This hydrates the flour, develops the flavor, and prevents the cookies from spreading too thin.
8. Use A Combo Of Milk & Dark Chocolate
Consider using a combination of milk and dark chocolate to achieve the perfect flavor combination. Dark chocolate offsets the sweetness, and milk chocolate adds creaminess and prevents the cookie from being too bitter.
9. Chop The Chocolate
Instead of using chocolate chips, consider buying it in bars and chopping it yourself into chunks. This allows for big, beautiful pools of chocolate instead of little, less satisfying dots.
10. Use A Cookie Scoop
For even sizing, use a cookie scoop instead of your hands or a regular spoon when shaping. If you really want to be a stickler, you can even weigh your cookie balls to ensure they're perfectly equal.
11. Preheat Your Oven Properly
Don't make the mistake of not waiting long enough for your oven to preheat. Ensure it's the right temperature by using an oven thermometer to avoid baking issues.
12. Place Them On The Pan Two Inches Apart
Unless you want to end up with one massive cookie, adequately space your cookies apart on the baking sheet so they don't spread into each other. A good rule of thumb is to leave two inches of space between them.
13. Bake On Parchment Paper
Line your baking sheets with parchment paper, not foil. This ensures they don't stick, promotes even baking, and prevents over-browning.
14. Bang Pan Mid-Bake
Halfway through baking, lift the tray and drop it a few times to deflate air pockets. This also helps achieve crinkled edges and soft centers.
15. Cool On the Pan First
When you take the cookies out of the oven, they're actually still baking just from the heat of the tray. This is why you want to take them out before they look totally done and leave them cooling on the tray for at least five minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.
16. Don't Bake Them All Right Away
Everyone can agree, a fresh cookie out of the oven is better than a day-old one. Most recipes make two or three dozen cookies, so unless you're making them for a large party, keep some balled-up dough in your fridge or freezer to be baked fresh when you want.
17. Evenly Distribute Leaveners
Have you ever bitten into a baked good and gotten a big hunk of baking soda? It's not a pleasant taste. To avoid this, make sure to mix leaveners into dry ingredients very well before combining with wet.
Addilyn Ragsdill @clockworklemon.com on Unsplash
18. Try Browning The Butter
For a richer, toffee-like flavor, consider browning all or part of the butter in the recipe. Just make sure it's adequately cool before mixing it with the other ingredients.
19. Add Some Espresso Powder
Coffee and chocolate are a match made in heaven. Adding a touch of espresso powder or a shot of cooled espresso to your cookie dough will bring out the chocolate flavor.
20. Don't Bake From Cold
Always ensure your cookie batter is at room temperature before shaping it into balls and baking it. This ensures even spreading and prevents undercooked centers.
