This Easy Trick Makes Chocolate Chip Cookies That Look Bakery-Perfect
I'll never bake them the same way again.
I was a chocolate chip cookie baker from a young age. I would make the recipe on the back of the Nestlé Toll House chocolate morsels package over and over, trying to perfect my craft (and, well, eat a bunch of chocolate chip cookies). But, even at age 12, I knew that something wasn’t quite right.
Sure, the cookies tasted pretty good, but they never looked like the perfect treats on the front of the package. Instead, they were thin, flattish, and too crisp all over. I wanted cookies that I could sink my teeth into, that were crisp on the edges, but substantial and chewy on the inside.
In the years since, including a stint in culinary school that included pastry training, I’ve learned a few tips that have improved my cookies. But, as I read through Sally McKenney’s new bestselling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101, I saw a chocolate chip cookie trick that stopped me in my tracks.
An Easy Shaping Technique
First, let me be clear that I’m not talking about super-thick, Levain Bakery-style cookies here. I adore those (especially this recipe), but these are more classic chocolate chip cookies. Because after all, sometimes you just want a cookie, not a whole meal.
Everyone knows that to make chocolate chip cookies, you roll the dough into balls and plop them on the baking sheet. But McKenney, the creator of the mega-popular site Sally's Baking Addiction, has a tweak to the technique. Instead of forming the dough into balls before baking, McKenney suggests shaping it into lumpy, misshapen cylinders.
McKenny says she discovered this technique through years of observing how different dough shapes bake. “A perfectly round ball of cookie dough tends to spread into a smooth cookie, which looks nice, but often misses that craggly, bakery-style charm. By shaping the dough into tall, rough-edged cylinders, the cookies bake up thicker, with crinkly tops and a rustic texture full of beautiful ridges and folds.”
More Tips for Pretty Cookies
McKenney says that the shaping technique isn’t the only thing that contributes to her recipe’s good looks. “The higher ratio of brown sugar gives the dough a deeper, caramel-like color, while the baking soda helps the cookies brown beautifully as they bake." She also highlights the dough-chilling step. “Chilling the dough is key because it firms up the melted butter so the cookies spread less in the oven, which means they bake thicker.”
There was one last tip in the recipe that promised to make a big difference in the final look of my cookies: pressing a few extra chocolate chips into the tops of the warm cookies right out of the oven. “It’s optional,” says McKenney, “but it makes them look bakery-style and photo-ready.”
The Results
As soon as I saw the recipe with these ideas in Sally's Baking 101, I knew I had to try it. I baked up a batch and voila, look at these beauties.
And since looks aren’t everything, let me add that these cookies tasted absolutely fantastic: crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside with a rich caramel flavor. My family couldn't gobble them up fast enough. There was barely a need to store them properly.
While there’s no question that McKenney's recipe will be my new go-to for classic chocolate chip cookies, you could apply the dough resting, dough shaping, and final chocolate chip garnishing techniques to any chocolate chip cookie recipe. I only wish I'd known these tips as a 12-year-old baker. Live and learn, I suppose, and enjoy plenty of chocolate chip cookies in the meantime!
