cookie! bracket! final! four!

It’s finally time to write about chocolate chip cookies again, because I’ve finally had some time to bake chocolate chip cookies again. That means we’re nearing the finish line of the cookie bracket, with only six bakes to go.

If you’re new around here, get caught up on the cookie bracket before you go any farther. Or just dive in. Cookies aren’t that confusing.

the chocolate chip cookie bracket

the very sweet 16

let me tell you a thing or two about baking 250 cookies in a month

When I was a very little girl, I’m told, I had borderline dogmatic preferences, and I talked at such a young age, I had no trouble expressing them. I would only wear a specific diaper from the Looney Tunes variety pack, and I insisted on putting on head-to-toe pink clothing every day for more than a year. I ate mashed carrots for so many meals in a row that I began to turn orange at the edges.

But at some point, when no one was picking out my clothes for me anymore and after I’d learned I actually liked most flavors and foods, my preferences quieted. Maybe it was just the social conditioning inherent in being a girl in the ’90s and aughts. Maybe I really was just so wowed by the fact that I liked most things, and it was easy to float through life feeling fine about the choices I fell into.

Whatever the case may be, I’ve spent most of my adult life saying, “oh, sure!” — often as it applies to food.Would I want to split the burrata? Oh, sure! Should we go for burgers or tacos? You pick! I like burgers, I like tacos, I like burrata, and I really like abdicating decision-making. I enjoy almost everything — except having to decide which of several options I’d enjoy more.

That brings me to the unanticipated downside of the cookie bracket, which I’ve (finally) narrowed down to a final four. This experiment has had all kinds of upsides — hundreds of cookies, delighted coworkers, my pantry being stocked with high-quality chocolate chips — and the negatives have been few and far between. The biggest one, by far, is something I never anticipated: having to be the ultimate arbiter of which cookie advances and which gets sent home.

the cookie bracket at the start of the final four

There are no bad cookies in this bracket. I’m sure there are bad cookies out there in the world, languishing stale or underbaked. But most cookies are good cookies, and I made sure to pick 16 I knew — or at least suspected — would come out delicious. So in order to pick a winner in each matchup, I’ve had to isolate what I like and don’t like. I’ve had to stop worrying so much about what someone might think when I say I really don’t prefer dried fruit or oatmeal or cinnamon — even though I do like dried fruit and oatmeal and cinnamon in plenty of other circumstances. I’ve gotten plenty of feedback as I’ve picked winners, but ultimately, this has to be the cookie I want to default to, the one I’d feel proud to bring to a birthday party or a housewarming or a friend who’s just had a baby.

So here goes: I like salt. I like deep, rich, bittersweet chocolate, and sometimes a bit more than the recipe calls for. I like a bit of crunch. I like pistachios. I don’t mind having to use multiple types of flour. I’m less interested in a cookie that’s laced with fall flavors, or one with a super cake-y consistency. I can do without pecans and walnuts and fruit.

salted butter and chocolate chunk shortbread vs. pistachio, brown butter and halva chocolate chunk cookies

That’s all reflected in the final four of the bracket. The last four cookies standing are all rich and a little bit salty. They’re also really, really different from one another, which is a fun wrinkle. On the left side of the bracket, the pistachio, brown butter and halva chocolate chunk cookie is big and crispy at the edges and full of concentrated chunks of dark chocolate — but it’s possible to get a whole, big bite without a single chocolate morsel. Though I’d usually consider that an affront, the brown butter, pistachios and halva more than make up for the fact that these cookies are only sporadically chocolate-y.

That cookie will face off next with the salted butter and chocolate chunk shortbread, Alison Roman’s cult-status recipe that took over the internet a few years ago. I love that both cookies on this side of the competition are the brainchildren (Is that a word? Now it is!) of women chefs who profess to not really like chocolate and/or baking. It seems as if both of these recipes must’ve had to clear a high bar before being released into the world, and they’re both a little savory and full of complex flavors and interesting textures. The shortbread cookie is crispy at the edges and dense and not even all that sweet. It’s perfect for dipping in coffee, if you’re so inclined. (One tip if you’re setting out to make some: I’ve had better luck resting the dough, once it’s rolled into logs, in the fridge for about six hours — or even overnight.)

Jacques Torres's chocolate chip cookies vs. salted chocolate chunk cookies

On the other side of the bracket, both No. 1 seeds emerged. How boring. Except… these cookies are just delightful, and my seeding was a result of having made them and loved them multiple times before. Jacques Torres’s chocolate chip cookies are the cakiest of the final four, so if you’re someone who’s averse to crispy edges, maybe this is where your cookie bracket journey ends. If so, you’re in good hands. These cookies look like something you could buy in a bakery for $6 a pop. Take the instructions about resting the dough seriously — doing it for 36 hours instead of 24 really does make a difference — and you’re going to pull a batch out of the oven and think you should quit your job to open a bakery. These may be the platonic ideal of a classic chocolate chip cookie, with just a sprinkle of flaky salt to give them a slight edge.

And then there are the salted chocolate chunk cookies from Smitten Kitchen. The start of this bracket feels like a lifetime ago, but if I’m remembering right, these were the first cookies I made. The absolute best thing about this recipe is the turbinado sugar, which really does give the texture a satisfying crunch. Do not, under any circumstances, skip it. And speaking of texture, these guys have a pretty awesome balance between crispy edges and gooey insides, which is an almost impossible line to walk in the world of cookies.

I’m going to wrap the bracket up this month. By the end of August, if not sooner, we’ll have a winner. I’ll have baked nearly 500 cookies. I’ll have been forced, over and over again, to decide I like salt more than poppyseeds, chocolate chips more than chunks, pistachios more than pecans. And I’ll have found my cookie identity.

I’ll leave you all now with a few thoughts on the best cookies that didn’t make the cut:

• Moroccan-spiced sweet potato miso chocolate chunk cookies: The matchup between these and the pistachio cookies was the closest call in the round of eight. As I said above, I don’t even really like “fall” flavors, and these cookies taste like fall, but they are to die for. One thing to note: There are some discrepancies between the ingredient list and the instructions. In the instructions, the recipe writer references butter, pumpkin spice and pumpkin puree, and in the ingredient list, it’s coconut oil, ras el hanout and sweet potato puree. Since the words “Moroccan” and “sweet potato” are in the recipe title, I went with the ingredient list. I’m be curious to see how these turn out with butter, but I’m all set without pumpkin.

• Toll House cookies and “Joy of Cooking” cookies: These are tried-and-true, classic recipes, and you just can’t go wrong with them. In my two bakes of each recipe, the “Joy of Cooking” cookies came out just a bit crispier than the Toll House, which had just slightly more oomph in terms of their structure and crumb.