blue artichoke

28 dozen cookies
16 tasters
7 recipes
1 winner

The competition was fierce. Every recipe received a bid for top three. One recipe, however, received five bids for first place and two bids for second place, making it the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Here it is:

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cook’s Illustrated 1/1996

These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.

Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies
2 1/8 cups bleached all-purpose flour (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.)

4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.

Taster’s comments:
“Most appealing appearance. Best blend of crispy initial bite followed by chewiness. Sweet, but not too sweet.” – Green Mango Custard

“Excellent combo of chewy and crunchy. Good ratio of chocolate to cookie.” – Blue Salmon

The second place cookie had dark chocolate chips and many tasters suggested using the dark chocolate chips in the first place cookie. The third place cookie had three times the amount of vanilla as the other cookies. Looks like I need to play around with the winning recipe, trying different kinds of chocolate and increasing the amount of vanilla. But it’s pretty damn good on its own.

Overheard at the Snackdown party:
“Pants and cookies don’t mix. It’s a well-known fact” – Blue Sushi

“No one really cooks with horse sweat anymore.” -- Blue Sushi