Butternut Bakery’s Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies

By the time I got around to choosing all of the recipes for this challenge, apparently TikTok had decided chocolate chip cookies were just going to be part of my personality for a while.

Because that’s where I stumbled across yet another chocolate chip cookie rabbit hole.

This time it wasn’t actually a cookie video that got me.

Lily P. Crumbs showed up on my For You Page with something completely unrelated. I clicked over to her page, started looking around and discovered that she had done something that immediately caught my attention:

She had spent two years trying chocolate chip cookie recipes from around the internet and then ranked them.

Well, hell.

I’d already decided I wanted to do my own chocolate chip cookie challenge before I ever found her list, but obviously I needed to see what someone else who had gone down this particular rabbit hole had discovered.

And, maybe more importantly, whether I agreed with her.

Choosing One From Her List

I didn’t want to simply copy recipes from someone else’s challenge. I already had ideas about what I wanted mine to include.

But I did want to choose at least one from Lily’s list.

I’d actually considered Joshua Weissman’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, but his required more time than I had available for this round. I was baking seven homemade chocolate chip cookie recipes in two days before leaving town.

There are limits.

Or at least I was still pretending there were.

Then I saw Butternut Bakery’s Thick Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies on the list.

I already knew Butternut Bakery. I’d followed Jenna Barnard for quite a while, so when I saw her recipe, I clicked.

The recipe looked interesting.

More importantly, it didn’t require me to start making cookies three days before I wanted to bake them.

Sold.

I’d actually pulled the recipe up and decided to try it well before the actual cookie-baking insanity began.

Apparently We’re Making Giant Cookies Again

There was, however, one little detail I glossed over.

These are supposed to be massive cookies.

The original recipe makes just six cookies, with each one weighing about six ounces. That’s roughly three-quarters of a cup of cookie dough PER COOKIE.

What is it with all these giant chocolate chip cookies?

For this challenge, that simply wasn’t happening.

I wasn’t handing my scuba-diver friends a six-ounce chocolate chip cookie and then asking them if they’d like to try several more.

So, just like I did with some of the other recipes in this challenge, I downsized them. I used my regular cookie scoop, which is about a tablespoon and a half.

I did try to shape the dough taller rather than making perfectly round balls like I normally would, because these are supposed to be thick bakery-style cookies.

What I apparently missed when I read the recipe was the warning that making them smaller could change their texture.

Oops.

For what it’s worth, I don’t remember mine being cakey.

But at some point I probably should make these again exactly the way Jenna intended—six-ounce monster cookie and all—and see how much of a difference it actually makes.

I Even Bought the Fancy Butter

One of the things this recipe specifically calls for is European-style butter.

And this time I actually followed the specialty-ingredient recommendation.

Look at me go.

I used Kerrygold Irish butter, which is pretty much the European butter option available around here.

The recipe also uses both dark and milk chocolate. I used Ghirardelli for the dark chocolate and another rather expensive milk chocolate that I absolutely cannot remember the name of now.

I do remember paying for it, though.

Funny how that works.

And I liked that combination.

The dark and milk chocolates together gave these cookies a flavor that stood out from a standard semisweet-chocolate-chip cookie. There was something about it I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but it was distinctive.

And Then I Forgot the Cornstarch

The recipe calls for flour, baking soda, baking powder and cornstarch.

I knew that.

I got the cornstarch out.

I put it on the counter.

And then I proceeded to make the cookies without putting the cornstarch in them.

Because apparently having an ingredient sitting directly in front of me is not enough to ensure I will actually use it.

I didn’t even intentionally leave it out.

I just forgot.

At this point I was making seven chocolate chip cookie recipes in two days, so I’m honestly impressed all seven contained sugar. (Another story for another day!)

The recipe also calls for one whole egg plus one additional egg yolk.

I followed that instruction.

Did I enjoy throwing away a perfectly good egg white right before leaving town when I had absolutely nothing else to use it for?

No.

Did I do it anyway?

Yes.

The sacrifices I made for this challenge…

At Least This One Didn’t Take Three Days

The dough needs to chill for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

I believe mine ended up chilling somewhere between four and six hours.

That was doable.

At this point, my definition of a “convenient” chocolate chip cookie recipe had apparently become one that only required me to wait half a day to bake it.

But compared with some of the recipes I had considered?

I’ll take it.

After chilling, I scooped mine smaller than instructed, shaped them as tall as I reasonably could, and baked them.

There is apparently also an instruction to give the baking sheet a couple of whacks on the counter after the cookies come out of the oven.

I completely missed that.

Considering the previous recipe in this challenge wanted me to repeatedly pull cookie sheets out of the oven and bang them on the counter, maybe my brain had simply started filtering out all cookie-related violence.

Either way, no pan banging occurred.

So…How Were They?

They were soft.

They were good.

They looked like a chocolate chip cookie you’d absolutely want to grab off the cooling rack.

And that dark-and-milk-chocolate combination gave them something a little different that I liked.

Was I standing over the cooling rack having some kind of life-changing chocolate chip cookie revelation?

No.

But there’s another possible explanation for that.

By this point, I was so freaking tired of chocolate chip cookies.

I don’t even remember if I ate one of these warm from the oven.

And that’s saying something.

Normally, there is absolutely no universe in which I’m baking chocolate chip cookies and not eating one while the chocolate is still melted enough to burn the roof of my mouth.

Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookies.

But somewhere during seven homemade batches in two days, even I reached my limit.

The thought of eating another one was starting to make me a little sick to my stomach.

Apparently there really is such a thing as too many chocolate chip cookies.

Who knew?

I Need to Make These Again

This is one of the recipes from the challenge that I think deserves another try someday.

Partly because I forgot the cornstarch.

Partly because I made them significantly smaller than the recipe intended.

Partly because I didn’t follow the pan-banging instruction.

And partly because I’d like to eat one when I’m actually in the mood for a chocolate chip cookie, rather than when my kitchen has turned into some kind of deranged chocolate chip cookie production facility.

Next time, I’d even make the ridiculous six-ounce cookies.

One recipe.

Six enormous cookies.

European butter.

Expensive chocolate.

Cornstarch that actually makes it into the mixing bowl.

The whole thing exactly as written.

Because after all of this, I am curious whether that giant cookie really does make as much difference as Jenna says it does.

But that experiment is going to have to wait.

I’ve made enough chocolate chip cookies for a while.

A long while.

And with that…

I am officially done baking cookies for this challenge.

Thank goodness.