There are lots of things to consider when it comes to making chocolate chip cookies. Deciding which flour, sugar, leaveners, fats, and chocolate to try—hoping they all work harmoniously to produce the perfect, chewy bite. Pastry chef and cookbook author Natasha Pickowicz joins Epicurious to break down every decision she makes and every strategy she employs in elevating this classic cookie into something unforgettable.
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00:00 When it comes to making chocolate chip cookies, you have to make a lot of decisions.
00:05 You need to choose flour, sugar, leaveners, fat, chocolate, and additions for how it all
00:11 comes together.
00:12 Some of these ingredients are going to give you the perfect chewy bite, while others may
00:16 leave you feeling a bit disappointed.
00:18 I'm Natasha Pickowitz, pastry chef and cookbook author, and today you're going to see every
00:23 decision that I make for the perfect chocolate chip cookies.
00:27 First, let's talk about flour.
00:31 What makes a great flour for a chocolate chip cookie is something that's unbleached, has
00:35 tons of great flavor, and is fine.
00:38 This is the classic gold medal all-purpose.
00:41 It's bleached and it's enriched, which means that they are removing nutrients from the
00:47 wheat and adding it back in artificially after.
00:50 So we don't need this.
00:52 Cake flour.
00:53 You want a cake flour for something with kind of a fine, tender crumb, but here we're actually
00:59 looking for a chewier, more sturdy crumb.
01:03 Nature's promise, this is an almond flour, so your nut flours don't have wheat in them.
01:07 They don't have gluten, so they're not going to provide the right kind of texture in the
01:11 final cookie.
01:12 This is the King Arthur whole wheat flour.
01:15 Whole wheat means that it's higher in fiber because it still has the bran and germ attached
01:20 to the wheat, so it's going to suck up a lot more moisture in your cookie dough, which
01:25 means the cookie won't be that moist or tender, so I don't want to use this.
01:29 This is the King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour.
01:33 My go-to flour for cookie baking.
01:36 It doesn't have any additives to it.
01:38 It hasn't been bleached.
01:39 It is literally just ground wheat, so this is really the best thing for consistent baking
01:44 for a perfect chocolate chip cookie.
01:45 I choose this as the foundation for my cookie dough.
01:49 This is the Bob's Red Mill organic buckwheat flour.
01:54 Buckwheat flour has an incredible earthy flavor.
01:58 When used in small amounts, it is the perfect counterpoint for other rich and interesting
02:05 flavors that are going to go into our chocolate chip cookie dough.
02:08 So what I'm going to do to make this chocolate chip cookie taste even better is toast our
02:12 flours before we mix the dough.
02:14 Toasting any flour is actually going to coax out even more flavor.
02:17 Throw it in a low, cool oven, about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, for about 12 to 15 minutes or
02:23 until it smells absolutely amazing.
02:26 So my decision is buckwheat flour and unbleached all-purpose flour.
02:32 Now let's look at some sugars.
02:36 When I'm picking a sugar for a chocolate chip cookie, I'm looking for flavor, I'm looking
02:40 for moisture, I'm looking for sweetness and texture.
02:44 This is the Wholesome Organic Coconut Sugar.
02:47 It has a great toasty, butterscotchy flavor, but it lacks the moisture to make a great
02:53 chocolate chip cookie dough.
02:54 This is glucose syrup.
02:56 A glucose syrup is going to make the cookie spread too much because it has too much water
03:00 content in it.
03:01 This is Domino Light Brown Sugar.
03:04 With light brown sugar, they get there by adding molasses into regular cane sugar, so
03:08 the flavor isn't as deep or intense.
03:11 This texture is too fine, actually, to use for a chocolate chip cookie, and light brown
03:17 is just not as intense or as yummy as the dark brown sugar.
03:21 This is the Domino Dark Brown Sugar.
03:23 Very similar to a light brown sugar, but just more of that molasses added in to get you
03:27 a darker, richer kind of flavor.
03:30 Again, I think the texture of this is too fine to use in a chocolate chip cookie, so
03:35 I don't want this either.
03:36 This is the Wholesome Organic Fairtrade Dark Brown Sugar.
03:39 It has a beautiful, sparkly look, an incredibly rich flavor that feels very complex and nuanced,
03:48 and the texture of it is more coarse, so I think it's going to hydrate our dough perfectly.
03:55 People love to debate if organic is really necessary when you're shopping for your ingredients.
03:59 When it comes to dark brown sugar, it matters a ton.
04:02 This is organic.
04:04 This is not organic.
04:05 The aroma of the organic dark brown sugar is so much more intense, and the texture is
04:10 like, it couldn't be more different.
04:11 This is drier, much finer.
04:14 This is damper, it's more plush.
04:15 This is clearly like a way better, more superior ingredient, and in a chocolate chip cookie
04:20 where brown sugar is adding so much flavor and texture into the final cookie, it really
04:26 matters that you go organic.
04:28 This is the Domino Granulated Sugar.
04:31 This is like my all-purpose flour of sugars.
04:35 This is what's going to help the cookie spread enough.
04:38 The brown sugar gives you great flavor.
04:40 The cane sugar is going to help with the texture of the cookie.
04:44 So this is what I choose.
04:45 Domino Granulated Cane Sugar and Wholesome Organic Dark Brown Sugar.
04:49 Next, let's pick how these cookies will rise.
04:54 When you're making a chocolate chip cookie, the leavener is going to be the thing that
04:59 activates the network of gluten and sugar and fat to hold air inside of it, which will
05:06 let it be tender and chewy in the final product.
05:08 This is a Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast.
05:11 This is actually dehydrated yeast plus additives that allow it to work immediately.
05:16 Active Dry Yeast has a flavor to it.
05:17 There's a tang to it that I don't always want in a cookie.
05:22 Active Dry Yeast is not it.
05:23 This is Sourdough Starter.
05:26 Sourdough Starter is great for adding flavor, but when you're talking about a chocolate
05:31 chip cookie, a sourdough is actually going to add too much acidity and strong flavor
05:36 to your cookie, which is going to overpower some of these other flavors.
05:40 So I don't want this either.
05:41 This is Cream of Tartar.
05:43 Cream of Tartar is mostly used to create lift and structure for whipping eggs.
05:49 It helps the egg white stay stiff and retain the air that's whipped inside of it afterwards.
05:58 But we want a cookie with a crumb that has chew, so we don't need to use this.
06:03 This is your classic Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.
06:05 Baking soda is crucial in the rising of baked goods that are high in fat and moisture.
06:11 The great thing about baking soda is a little bit goes a long way.
06:14 You need so little to do the job that you won't be able to taste it at all.
06:19 Whippings I think are critical to a delicious chocolate chip cookie.
06:22 They add richness and they add moisture.
06:25 They're able to incorporate tons of air into them and they can dissolve things like sugars
06:30 inside of them.
06:31 So we're going to dissolve the sugars directly into these whipping eggs.
06:35 This is the base of our cookie dough, is eggs and sugar.
06:38 So for Leaveners, my decision are whipped eggs and sugar mixture and baking soda.
06:44 And now we got to talk about fat.
06:48 The fat should be rich.
06:51 It should have great flavor and it should be able to hold air inside of it when you
06:55 add other ingredients.
06:57 Let's start with, this is just vegetable oil.
07:00 An oil or fat in liquid form is not going to be the right thing for a chocolate chip
07:05 cookie.
07:06 It's too high in moisture.
07:09 The cookie's going to spread too much.
07:11 Plain vegetable oil has a greasy mouthfeel on the palate when you're baking with it.
07:15 So I don't want to use vegetable oil.
07:17 This is Crisco all vegetable shortening.
07:20 This is perfect for kind of creating flaky pie doughs, but we're not really looking for
07:25 that texture.
07:26 We want kind of a chewy crumb.
07:28 While it has the same appearance as butter, it has no flavor and it's not going to be
07:33 good in a chocolate chip cookie.
07:35 So here is a stick of sweet cream, salted butter.
07:39 I don't want a butter company to decide how much salt is going to go into my cookie.
07:44 This is an American unsalted sweet cream butter.
07:49 In its solid state, you can whip and aerate it, which is going to incorporate air into
07:55 the cookie dough, which will allow us to easily emulsify other heavier ingredients into it
08:00 later.
08:01 It has a richness, a sweetness to it.
08:03 So this is the one.
08:05 But we're going to do something else to make it taste even better in a chocolate chip cookie.
08:09 Brown butter is the process of boiling off the excess water in a stick of butter.
08:14 So much so that you're actually toasting the milk solids that are in the butter and caramelizing
08:20 them.
08:21 You can just add sticks of butter to a pot and once the mixture melts down, it's going
08:27 to begin to boil furiously.
08:30 And those big bubbles are the water evaporating, like boiling water.
08:35 So once you see those milk solids are kind of like the color of a caramel sauce, the
08:40 butter is done.
08:42 So you want to make sure you're transferring it into a heat proof bowl.
08:44 As soon as it's ready, we're going to put this into the fridge.
08:47 We actually need it to re-solidify so we can blow air into it through emulsifying it with
08:53 other ingredients.
08:55 So this is the one.
08:56 Chilled brown butter.
08:57 And now for everyone's favorite ingredient, chocolate.
09:02 How do you pick the perfect chocolate for a chocolate chip cookie?
09:05 You want great flavor, you want the right sweetness, and the perfect shape.
09:09 Here's a classic, Nestle Tollhouse.
09:12 This is called a morsel because the first ingredient is not even chocolate, it's sugar.
09:18 This to me is too processed, it's not going to melt right in the cookie, it's going to
09:22 be too sweet.
09:24 This is not the right thing.
09:25 This is a grittard.
09:26 Gourmet white baking chips.
09:28 So the word chocolate is not even appearing in this phrase because it's technically not
09:32 chocolate.
09:33 It's like a mixture of sugar, cacao butter, and milk.
09:36 Again, too sweet for a chocolate chip cookie.
09:39 M&M's.
09:41 Classic candy, it's too sweet.
09:42 You want to avoid candy.
09:44 Here is a 100% real chocolate mini chip.
09:48 So semi-sweet.
09:49 Semi-sweet I like.
09:51 However, this is in a mini chip form, and this is where size and shape of chocolate
09:56 becomes really important.
09:57 I personally like, am looking for chocolate that is not in little polka dots, but is kind
10:04 of in thin sheets.
10:05 So when you bite into the cookie, you're kind of getting that chocolate that's sort of layered
10:09 into the cookie dough.
10:10 These kind of chocolate chips are not going to do that.
10:13 This is guittard chocolate.
10:16 This is a 70%, which is bittersweet, and then this is 64%, which is semi-sweet.
10:21 So this is going to be a little bit sweeter.
10:23 This is more like a classic dark chocolate.
10:25 I know this is a high quality chocolate because the first ingredient is cacao beans.
10:30 When you're making a chocolate chip cookie, you really want to kind of go for the best
10:34 chocolate that you can possibly get.
10:36 This is the Toll House morsels and our guittard bars, just thrown in a hot oven for a minute.
10:43 And you can see that because so many extra ingredients are added to the morsels to preserve
10:48 this chip shape, they don't even really like melt that well.
10:52 But here you can see this beautiful deep shine to the chocolate when it's melted, which means
10:58 that when the cookie is warm and hot, it'll be absolutely delicious and melty on the palate.
11:04 But as the cookie cools, the chocolate will re-harden and it'll still have that great
11:08 snap and crunch.
11:09 I like a mixture of semi-sweet and bittersweet.
11:13 We're going to actually chop this by hand.
11:15 And you can see you get these bigger pieces, which are nice, all different shapes, and
11:20 then these beautiful, fine, almost like a chocolate curls, shavings dust.
11:25 And this is so nice because when it goes into the cookie, it kind of like melts imperceptibly
11:30 into the dough.
11:31 So every bite you get feels super harmonious and perfect.
11:34 So this is what I choose, semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolate.
11:38 And last but not least, a few extra additions.
11:43 When I'm looking to add the final finishing touches, I'm looking for that final layer
11:48 of seasoning and what will drive home that classic chocolate chip cookie flavor.
11:52 This is a Cafe Bustelo instant coffee, classic pairing with chocolate.
11:58 But in this case, a coffee flavor is really going to distract, I think, from the warming
12:04 notes we're looking for in a chocolate chip cookie.
12:06 Salt, a very important sort of invisible ingredient in our chocolate chip cookie.
12:12 We need something that is not perceptible to our palate, but will sort of balance these
12:17 things out and almost rain back their sweetness and their richness.
12:21 This is my favorite baking salt of all time.
12:26 This is Diamond Crystal.
12:27 This is an industry favorite.
12:29 It's beloved for a reason.
12:31 This is their kosher salt flakes.
12:33 It's quite coarse in the hand.
12:35 They dissolve perfectly into doughs.
12:37 They have a great flavor that it feels weird to say this salt's not too salty, but this
12:42 salt is not as salty as other salts.
12:44 This is a great one to use.
12:45 Yet another kind of salt.
12:46 This is Maldon sea salt flakes.
12:48 We're going to add salt into the cookie dough to kind of season the entire dough.
12:53 We're also going to add finishing salt on top of our cookie to add that final like punch
12:58 of flavor.
12:59 So I love this salt for finishing because it's a very soft salt.
13:04 You can kind of pinch it smaller.
13:05 It can kind of crumble.
13:06 It can kind of flake.
13:07 So it's perfect for finishing on cookies because of how soft it is.
13:12 You cannot have a chocolate chip cookie without vanilla.
13:16 This is clear imitation vanilla extract.
13:19 There's no vanilla in this at all.
13:21 It's just kind of chemicals developed to kind of taste like vanilla.
13:25 For me, you're not getting those distinct flavors of vanilla that make chocolate chip
13:30 cookies so incredible.
13:31 So I don't think we're going to use this.
13:33 Once we get into actual vanilla, a great vanilla bean can cost $30 a piece.
13:39 This is probably not the right thing to put into a chocolate chip cookie.
13:43 It just disappears into the cookie dough.
13:45 Similarly, this is the Nielsen Massey vanilla bean paste.
13:49 Because we're making a cookie dough that is going to be pocked with chocolate, that's
13:52 going to have buckwheat flour in it, the flecks of the vanilla bean caviar are going to just
13:57 be lost in this.
13:59 This is a Hilala pure vanilla extract.
14:02 This vanilla extract is kind of the essence of these pods, but sort of preserved in an
14:07 alcohol.
14:08 So you're also getting a little bit of that tang and burn from the alcohol in the cookie
14:13 dough and a little bit of extra liquid.
14:15 So we want that hydrating liquid in the extract to go in the dough.
14:19 This is the flavor that's going to create that unmistakable classic chocolate chip cookie.
14:24 So my final cookie additions are Maldon sea salt flakes, kosher salt, and pure vanilla
14:30 extract.
14:31 And now it's time to make this into a dough.
14:35 So first thing, I always mix together my dry ingredients before I do anything else.
14:40 When you want the brown butter to be rechilled and then re-softened, right into the mixer,
14:46 it's going to lighten in color and get pale and fluffy.
14:49 This is going to allow all the other ingredients to emulsify together and give you that perfect
14:54 texture with the final cookie.
14:56 You're really looking for the brown butter to kind of be white and creamy and almost
15:00 look like frosting.
15:01 So while the mixer is on, I'll add my egg mixture.
15:04 We'll add our pure vanilla extract.
15:07 I'm going to under mix this on purpose because once you add flour to a wet substance, any
15:13 action you give it is going to develop gluten.
15:16 So here's our dry mixture.
15:18 Mix that by hand a bit.
15:20 And then the last thing for our chocolate chip cookie dough is the chocolate.
15:24 We have our bittersweet and our semi-sweet.
15:27 All those great mixed up sizes, the shards, which you're really going to be able to see
15:31 in the dough once we mix it all in.
15:33 That's it.
15:34 Just once or twice around the mixer.
15:36 We have our dough made.
15:38 It all tastes better when it has a chance to kind of come together.
15:41 So I'll just kind of wrap it in plastic, pat it into a little block, and then put this
15:46 in the fridge overnight, two days, whatever, and then it can be baked off.
15:50 And now, let's shape and bake.
15:55 You want to set your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:58 You want an aluminum half sheet baking tray, a piece of parchment paper, and some kind
16:03 of nonstick cooking spray.
16:05 I like to work with dough that is chilled while I shape it so it doesn't stick to my
16:09 hands and then I let it come to room temperature on the baking sheet before I bake them off.
16:14 That's where you get the best ratio of chewy on the center, crisp on the outside.
16:18 So I'll just use a bench scraper instead of a cookie scoop.
16:21 And I'm looking for about 70 gram balls.
16:24 It's about a quarter cup each.
16:26 And then just roll it with your hands into a ball right on the sheet tray.
16:30 You want to just make sure you're giving all of your cookies five inches of space because
16:34 they are going to spread in the oven.
16:37 And you can use the heel of your hand to kind of press them down into little pucks.
16:41 Last thing they get before they go in the oven, those final shards of chocolate.
16:44 That way you see them as soon as they come out of the oven.
16:47 So just a few pieces on top of each one.
16:50 And then just the smallest pinch of flaky sea salt on top of each one.
16:53 Adding it before they go in the oven helps the salt stick to the cookies better.
16:57 And that's it.
16:58 They're ready to go in the oven.
17:03 These cookies are fresh out of the oven.
17:05 They're piping hot.
17:06 Just give it a bang on the counter.
17:08 And that kind of forces the cookies to fall a little bit because all the air that we whipped
17:12 into the eggs, into the butter, causes the cookies to souffle a bit in the oven.
17:17 And once they cool, they will fall, which is how you get this sort of trademark crinkly
17:22 edges which translate to incredible texture.
17:26 The surface of the cookie even has a shine to it, which is something that you see on
17:30 like the top of a perfect brownie.
17:33 And that's what happens when you dissolve the sugar into the eggs.
17:36 You get this like beautifully satiny, crackly finish that is just like indescribable.
17:42 The like pools of chocolate on top are glossy and they look inviting.
17:46 The cookies look darker than a normal chocolate chip cookie because they have buckwheat flour
17:50 in them.
17:51 It's got these crisp, wrinkly edges, pools of melty chocolate.
17:55 But you get chocolate in every bite because you have those kind of like little pieces
17:59 that are in the dough and these bigger pools of melty chocolate.
18:04 Mmm.
18:06 The brown butter is so nutty.
18:10 It's so fragrant.
18:11 The cookie doesn't feel greasy or heavy.
18:13 It just feels light but chewy.
18:16 You get that kind of butterscotch-y caramel from the dark brown sugar, the classic pure
18:21 vanilla extract, a little bit of kosher salt seasoning the dough.
18:25 It's just the best cookie ever.
18:26 Everybody has their own favorite way of making chocolate chip cookies but this is my way
18:32 of building in lots of fun little strategies to really elevate this classic to like something
18:38 that you will never forget.
18:39 (upbeat music)