I have a problem.

I really like chocolate chip cookies.

Actually, that’s probably putting it mildly. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookie.

For years, I was convinced I had already found my favorite. In 2024, I was coming home from Niagara Falls and stopped in Santa Claus, Indiana. I had a chocolate chip cookie there that, at the time, I declared the best chocolate chip cookie I’d ever eaten.

That was it.

The search was over.

Or so I thought.

Then this year I made a sourdough chocolate chip cookie recipe from The Sourdough Hoe.

And it knocked that cookie from Santa Claus, Indiana, right out of first place.

Which left me with a problem.

If I had been so sure that cookie was the best, and then another cookie came along and took its spot, how do I actually know what the best chocolate chip cookie is?

Obviously, there was only one reasonable thing to do.

I needed to find out.

So I’m starting a challenge.

I’m calling this The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge, although I’m already realizing that calling it “The Great” might be a little ambitious for round one.

Because I chose eight cookies.

But have you seen how many chocolate chip cookie recipes exist?

There are approximately a bazillion.

So this isn’t going to be a one-and-done experiment where I announce the world’s best chocolate chip cookie and walk away.

This is going to be ongoing.

I’ll test cookies, give them a “grade,” compare them to the ones I’ve already tested, and eventually we’ll see if one cookie can actually hold onto the top spot.

At least, that’s the plan.

I haven’t completely figured out the grading system yet.

Details.

How did I choose these eight?

Honestly?

It’s a little bit of everything.

The first recipe came from TikTok.

I saw a woman make the claim that her chocolate chip cookies were the best.

Naturally, I went to the comments.

And people were basically saying, “How do you know yours are better than mine?”

Because apparently TikTok comments are where important culinary research happens.

Then I found someone in those comments who swore her cookies were better.

So I found her recipe, too.

That’s number two.

Number three came from another woman who had actually done something similar. I found her blog post and picked one of the recipes from her list that ranked toward the top.

Number four is the OG.

The original.

The recipe associated with Ruth Wakefield, who is widely credited with inventing the chocolate chip cookie.

If we’re going to compare chocolate chip cookies, we might as well see how the recipe that started it all holds up.

Number five is my mother-in-law’s recipe.

Memaw Cookies.

People constantly ask about them. People request them at gatherings. People swear they’re the best.

So obviously, they had to be in the competition.

Number six is a recipe I’ve already made several times.

Actually, I made it eight different times, changing the ingredients each time.

I didn’t even particularly love the cookie.

But I’d already done all that work, and I wanted to see how it compared to these other recipes.

Number seven is where I decided I needed a little nostalgia.

A store-bought, refrigerated cookie dough.

Six homemade recipes.

Two store-bought contenders.

And number eight?

Well.

I wanted to be funny.

So I bought a package of already-baked chocolate chip cookies from the cookie aisle.

Not bakery cookies.

Not something pretending to be homemade.

Chewy Chips Ahoy.

At this point, I feel like I owe an apology to every grandmother who has ever stood in a kitchen making cookies from scratch.

And then I changed the rules.

Originally, I wasn’t planning on doing a blind test.

I made the first cookies and had people taste them without hiding what they were.

But then I added the two store-bought contenders and realized that if people knew what they were eating, we weren’t really testing the cookies anymore.

We were testing people’s opinions about the cookies.

And I don’t want that.

So now the cookies will be labeled with letters.

Nobody helping me judge them will know which recipe they’re eating.

Nobody will know which one is Memaw’s.

Nobody will know which ones came from TikTok.

Nobody will know which one was made with sourdough—well, not this round.

And nobody will know which cookie came out of a tube or straight out of a package.

I’ll know.

Someone has to know.

And yes, I’m judging them, too.

I’m not going to ask everyone else what they think and then sit on the sidelines.

I want to know which one I like.

Because if I’m going to declare something the best chocolate chip cookie, I probably ought to like it myself.

I’m trying to make this fair.

I’m following the recipes.

I’m not changing somebody’s ingredients because I think I know better.

If a recipe says to do something, I’m doing it.

I’m using the same basic setup for all of them—same pans, same parchment, same ovens, same general process.

The one thing I may change as I go is the size of the cookies.

Not because I want to mess with somebody’s recipe, but because I don’t want to make enormous cookies.

If I want people to taste eight different chocolate chip cookies, I probably shouldn’t hand them eight cookies the size of a small dinner plate.

And I’m discovering that the older I get, sugar has some interesting opinions about me.

So we’re going to keep the cookies reasonable.

And then I started baking.

That’s when I realized exactly what I’d gotten myself into.

My first batch started with my battery-powered hand mixer deciding that it had done enough work for one lifetime.

It wouldn’t charge.

Fine.

I have a stand mixer.

Except the stand mixer decided to do something weird, too.

Then I knocked over the vanilla.

Everywhere.

Then I dropped a spatula.

At some point I was standing in my kitchen surrounded by cookie ingredients and equipment thinking:

What exactly have I done?

And I’d only made the first batch.

So this should be fun.

Here’s the part I’m most excited about.

The judging is going to be a little unconventional.

I don’t know exactly how many people will end up tasting these cookies.

I’m taking them to a dive site and basically telling anyone who wants to be a guinea pig that they can have an opinion.

Because why not?

I want different people tasting them.

I want people who don’t know me.

I want people who don’t know which recipe is which.

And I want to see if there is actually a consensus.

Or if chocolate chip cookies are just one of those things where everybody has a completely different idea of what makes a cookie good.

Because maybe that’s the answer.

Maybe there isn’t one “best” chocolate chip cookie.

Maybe there’s just the best chocolate chip cookie for you.

But I’m going to have a whole lot of fun finding out.

And I already know this isn’t the end.

Eight cookies is just where I’m starting.

There are way too many recipes out there to stop here.

And there are cookies I already know I want to test that didn’t make this first round.

Including the sourdough chocolate chip cookie that started this whole thing.

I didn’t have enough sourdough starter to make it this time, but considering it is currently my favorite chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever made, it will absolutely have to get its shot.

Eventually, I want to have a grading system that lets me compare every cookie I test.

Maybe one will take the top spot and stay there.

Maybe another cookie will come along and knock it off.

That’s kind of the fun of it.

So here we go.

Eight chocolate chip cookies.

Six homemade.

Two store-bought.

One blind taste test.

And one woman who apparently decided she needed to personally investigate the entire chocolate chip cookie industry.

I don’t know which one is going to win.

I haven’t even tasted all of them yet.

But I really, really want to know.

Let the cookie challenge begin. 🍪

The contenders this round:

• Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Memaw Cookies
• Pillsbury store-bought Dough Recipe
• Chewy Chips Ahoy
• Stableside Farm Stand Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
• Mysticinthekitchen Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
• Butternut Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookie
• Sugar Spun Run Chocolate Chip Cookie