ย Cliff Notes is a new series on Joy the Baker, authored by, my favorite baker and my favorite Cliff โ MY DAD! Dad is the inspiration behind so many of the classics here on the blog.ย You know him and love him for his Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (the subject of today’s lore), Buttermilk Pancakesย and of course the bestย Sweet Potato Pie on the planet.ย With Cliff Notes, Dad dives deep into the family history of these recipes and really, theyโre a delight.ย I have to say, Iโve learned so much about the details of these family recipes as Dad has put these notes together.ย I hope you enjoy this big warm welcome to our Wilson family kitchen.ย xo Joy
When I was a kid, I looked forward to when Mother would fancy up my lunch pail with Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies that she made at night after I had gone to bed. I always knew there was something special in my Roy Roger lunchbox as I walked to school; the smell of chocolate pepped up my stride. At lunch time, I didnโt have to tell my friends I brought chocolate chip cookies; the aroma wafting from my lunch pail in the cloakroom said it all. Growing up, Toll House was synonymous with homemade chocolate chip cookies. It still is. Millions of households have been making this iconic cookie for more than 85 years thanks to Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn with her husband in Whitman, Massachusetts. She began making these cookies using Nestlรฉโs Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bars she cut in pieces and added to her dough. On Pinterest I found her original recipe โFrom the Famous New England Inn.โ She called her cookies โToll House Chocolate Cookies.โ In 1939, Ruth sold the recipe to Nestlรฉ and the rest is history.
So, what sparked my desire to tamper with a legend? After all, the standard had already been set. If it ainโt broke, donโt fix it, right? For 20 years, I, along with millions of others with an insatiable sweet tooth, subscribed to this philosophy. We live our lives, get into a routine, buy a bag of chocolate chips, and make these cookies in our sleep. Almost. How many of us know the Toll House recipe by heart? Two sticks of butter, two eggs, ยพ cup brown sugar, ยพ cup granulated sugar, 2 ยผ cups flour, yada, yada, yadaโฆ The cookie dough is sticky, the edges are rough when you spoon-drop them on a cookie sheet, and when theyโve cooled after baking, theyโre a little on the flat side. The cookie itself disintegrates in the mouth after about five or six chews, leaving you with a mouth full of chocolate that you continue chewing as it melts before you swallow. After the chocolate high, you may wonder what the cookie itself tasted like. Donโt get me wrong, I love this! For 20 years, this was how I thought a chocolate chip cookie was supposed to look, and what I thought a chocolate chip cookie was supposed to do inside the mouth.
It wasnโt until the 1970s when Wally Amos opened a cookie store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood that I began to reassess the level of satisfaction a chocolate chip cookie could bring me. Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies! Those cookies were the bomb! They were soft and crispy, they sat up nicely, and you could savor the texture and flavor of the cookie, with the chocolate chips being a complement to the cookie. Shortly after my awakening, a new mall opened in my neighborhood, and one of the shops inside was Mrs. Fields Cookies. As I goggled at the big, beautiful, luscious cookies in the display, I was mesmerized! Weโre talking gourmet style! They didnโt look anything like the cookies my mother had packed in my lunchbox. When I sunk my teeth into one of those creationsโthe chewiness, the tenderness, and the crispiness, all in one bite! โI knew I was fine dining. I could taste the butterโoh yes, the butter! โthe brown sugar, the salt, oh, and by the way, the chocolate chips, and not one ingredient overwhelmed the other. I was experiencing a veritable tastebuds extravaganza! From that day forth, I began my quest to create a chocolate chip cookie that wowed me like Famous Amos and Mrs. Fields!
But first I needed to figure out the chemistry of ingredients and how they respond to one another. Too much of a wet ingredient makes for a flat cookie. Too much flour can create a dry or cakey cookie, and too much of an add-in, such as chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, etc., can take over the other ingredients. Ruth Wakefieldโs original recipe had two 7-ounce semi-sweet chocolate bars sheโd cut up. Thatโs 14 ounces, which is about 2 ยผ cupsโthe same amount as the flour in the recipe! No wonder the cookie dissolves into candy after a few chews. The Toll House recipe of today has 2 cups of chocolate chips to 2 ยผ cups of flourโstill a lot of chocolate. Of course, itโs a matter of personal preference but I tend to want to taste more than chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie, and Iโm not particularly fond of watching my gorgeous cookies flatten out and get bumpy. (Chilling the dough helps but it doesnโt change the fact that it has a lot of liquid in proportion to the flour.) The perfect cookie, in my opinion, comes from discovering the right balance of wet and dry ingredients to create sturdier cookie dough.
In my experimenting, I discovered three essential things:
- Ingredients should be precise, and for this, I recommend using a digital scale and measuring the ingredients in grams. For example, 1 cup of sifted flour weighs less than 1 cup unsifted flour, and depending on how you spoon or scoop unsifted flour into a measuring cup, youโre going to come out with a different weight almost every time. Weighing the ingredients guarantees accuracy.
- Reduce the amount of liquid in an ingredient without sacrificing the essence of that ingredient. Browning a stick of butter (113 grams) evaporates about 23 grams of water from the butter. Thatโs significant! And what you gain is more robust flavor. A win-win! Also, egg white is 90% water, so if the cookie recipe calls for 2 eggs, discard the white of one of the eggs. It will yield drier cookie dough and produce a flavorful, tender, and chewy cookie.
- Cut back on the chocolate chips. WHAT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? Itโs a chocolate chip cookie, for crying out loud! Why would you do that? My answer is, itโs a chocolate chip cookie, all right, but itโs still a cookie. Iโve discovered that one heaping cup of chocolate chips (about 209 grams) is just the right amount needed to make you thoroughly enjoy the browned butter, the chewiness, the saltiness, and the actual gumption of the cookie and still know youโre eating an astonishingly delicious chocolate chip cookie. Add chopped cashews, pecans, or walnuts to the dough for that extra pazazz. But donโt go nuts (ha-ha bad joke), ยฝ to ยพ cup is sufficient.
Find my best Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe here!
Enjoy!
Xo Cliff
33 Responses
I had the same issue with it being too dry and like sand. I also used a bakers scale. I noticed in the hand written recipe, it calls for 2 and quarter cups of flour but the printed version is 2 and 3 quarters cups of flour. Can you provide any insight on this issue
Yum. Best chocolate cookies ever, and I have made a few hundred batches in my time!
Long time reader from the veryyyy beginning! Looove your dad. So excited for this new series!
I love these new Cliff Notes! The brown butter chocolate chip cookies in your first cookbook were the first recipe I made from it, and is one I return to often. It’s been a while since I’ve made them though, so perhaps this will inspire me!
Wonderful post, thank you for the amazing advice and information!
LOVE Cliff’s update. I riff a bit on the sugar (reduce the granulated sugar by half usually) and I’m a little fast and loose with how hot the brown butter is going in (read: usually still warm!), but I have loved loved loved this recipe for many years. I will weigh things out the next time I make them to see the difference! I get so many compliments when I bring these cookies around and I always share the original recipe with cookie lovers because this is one you can’t miss and can’t go wrong with.
LOVE Cliff’s Notes – what an awesome addition to the blog.
xox
I am a complete convert of Cliff’s recipe. I like to make up a bunch of the dough and roll them and freeze them. They keep well in the freezer and I pop them out and bake them up as needed/wanted! In fact, my daughter, her husband and my sweet granddaughter came over for an impromptu dinner last night and these were a wonderful homemade dessert! Thanks for sharing your recipe. I think it’s the best!
Remember Samin Nosrat and Hrishi Hirway’s isolation podcast, “Home Cooking,” with beloved guest and food scientist Dr. Sumesh Uncle Hirway? The universe needs a podcast, show, meeting of the minds between Mr. Wilson and Dr. Sumesh Uncle Hirway.
Thanks for the Cliff Notes! These posts are an absolute treasure. I have never been a huge chocolate lover and have abided by the โfewer the chocolate chips, the better the cookie ruleโ for years. Iโve gotten a lot of flack for that, but it warms my heart to know I am not the only one. Thank you, Mr. Wilson and Joy for sharing your stories behind the recipes. Cooking/baking is so much more than measurements and ingredients, your words bring the recipes to life in a way that makes everything taste better just by reading about them.
Long time reader and could not love this more; what a sweet love note from your dad in this loving corner of the internet and essentially we should all make these delightful cookies immediately. Looking forward to all of your Texas adventures, Joy, and even more Cliff Notes.
How lovely of your dad to share his classic recipes and stories attached to them!
Reminds me there are a few family special recipes that are quintessential “dad cooked” dishes while growing up. Now taht my parents are retired and mom has few physical limitations he’s cooking more and more. He’s adding to the list.
On a search for a chocolate chip cookie recipe years ago, I came across this one and it’s the ONLY CC cookie recipe I make. This is the best recipe ever! Everyone I make them for loves them.
It was fascinating to read Mr. Cliff’s Notes on how he came up with the recipe. I must admit, I add 1 1/2 cups of three different kinds of chocolate chips, but his rationale makes sense, so I’m going to cut back to a 1 cup mixture.
Thank you for sharing your insights, Mr. Cliff! Looking forward to the next one.
I’m a Cliff Note fan! I enjoyed the story and the thoughtful breakdown of what makes a great chocolate chip cookie. Mine need to have walnuts too (same with brownies).
I’m going to try this recipe. I have a feeling that I’ll enjoy every crumb.
Now, what about the famous Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie with ground oatmeal? That was one of the famous chocolate chip cookies too. I probably need to make two batches of your recipe: one unadulterated version of your recipe, which is sure to delight, then one with some of the flour substituted with ground oatmeal.
Thank you again for your story telling and your recipe wisdom.
This was such a delightful read! Thank you, Cliff (and Joy for sharing him with us).
I couldn’t agree more about less chips. It’s how the taste of the chocolate plays off
of the cookie and vice versa. The dough itself has the delicious flavors of browned butter and when the edges are cooked more than the center it tastes of butterscotch. I love all of those flavors. So good!
Please more Cliff Notes!
Thank you Mr. Wilson! I’ve shared this with Joy before but wanted to tell you as well- I baked almost 300 of these very cookies to give out as a favor to our guests when my wife and I got married. Everyone loved them and I have absolutely committed the recipe to heart by now!
I would like to hear more from Cliff in the future please!! What an utter delight!!! I shall be making this recipe!!!!
… I think a book-length manuscript written by Cliff might begin to heal humankindโor at least nudge us in the right direction. <3 Now, time to make valentines and bake these cookies (and what the hell, maybe Joy's apple cinnamon oatmeal cookies too!). Thank you, dear Wilsons!!
So I posted a comment about 3 hours ago that I was going to make these for Super Bowl Sunday but then I thought why wait?? They are delicious!! Perfect, thicker texture and just the right amount of chocolate! My new favorite! Lightly sprinkled some flaky salt when they came out of the oven. Kids and grandkids will love these! Thank you Cliff!
I just love Cliff Notes! Such a great series.
Just want to say that these cookies are unbelievably good and I bake them every year for my neighbours for Christmas and they are such a hit! I always make extra for my household too. They are so incredibly delicious!
This was such a delight to read. Thanks Joy and Cliff! As a cookie lover, I agree about wanting to taste the actual cookie in a chocolate chip cookie.
I LOVE YOUR DAD and Iโm guessing we are about the same age! Could totally relate to discovering Famous Amos and Mrs Fields cookies as a teenager in the late 60s/70s! He hit everything on the nose. He is a wonderful storyteller Joy just like you! Completely agree with way too many choc chips in some recipes where you lose the cookie part. Will be making these for Superbowl Sunday. GO NINERS!! Fun fun read!
I fully agree on fewer chocolate chips!
I love the walk through time. Feeling like Iโm growing up with Cliff experiencing all these things with him. Browned butter is definitely the way to go!!
Been sold on the browned butter for awhile now, but this post has convinced me to join the Less is More Club for chocolate chips!
This explanation makes me want to try chocolate chip cookies again. I think they are too rich and prefer chocolate chip oatmeal, but now I have to try this recipe.
Joy’s Weekday Weekend oatmeal cookies are my go-to! I have the recipe on a post it inside my cupboard.
Love this! Thank you for sharing ??
The question marks were supposed to be a heart!
What a delightful read, thank you, Cliff!
What a storyteller! These essays captivate me. Thank you for sharing.
What a storyteller! These essays captivate me. Thank you for sharing.
Love the cookies, love their origin story. Cliff is a treasure–thank you for sharing him with us!
Such an amazing recipe and the story behind them is wonderful!