the chocolate chip cookie bracket

At some point, I was always going to bring my sportswriter sensibilities to Grazing. This is that point.

So: Let’s rank. Let’s consult experts to criticize my subjective evaluations. Let’s bake. Let’s crown a champion. What am I talking about? Keep reading.

When I was a kid, my family and I were Toll House people. My mom kept our chocolate chips in a square Tupperware container with the recipe from a long-finished bag taped to its blue lid. Over thousands of opens and shuts, the lid stretched and cracked and gave up any pretense of being air-tight, so we sealed our chocolate chip bags inside with chip clips and twist ties. The chips never lasted very long, anyways, so we weren’t that worried about them getting stale.

Chocolate chip cookies were a staple in our kitchen. There were years when my mom made them every other week, I bet, and there were certain constants: She was dogmatic about letting butter soften without the help of the microwave and never cracked an egg straight out of the fridge. We always argued about when to pull the cookies from the oven; my dad likes his crispy, and I wanted at least one sheet to come out a minute or two sooner than his darker-brown cookies.

salted chocolate chunk cookies

Over time, my mom’s methods did evolve. The Internet made her an even smarter baker, and gourmet ingredients showed up in our suburban grocery store. She began to line her cookie sheets with parchment paper. She upgraded to bittersweet Ghirardelli chips. I don’t remember the cookies ever tasting any better or worse than they’ve always tasted, though. They always tasted pretty great; I guess I evolved with them.

I’m not sure if my mom has ever made a chocolate chip cookie that wasn’t from the tried-and-true Toll House recipe, which was developed in the 1930s and sold to Nestle for $1. I, however, am always eager to mess with a good thing, so over the years since I went to college, I’ve dabbled in many a chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’ve made chewy cookies and crumbly ones, sprinkled chocolate chips in shortbread dough and chocolate dough and dough laced with peanut butter. I’ve made halva for the sole purpose of mixing it into cookie dough.

chocolate chip shortbread cookies

But I’ve never settled on a go-to recipe — not a recipe to make at the expense of all others, but one to default to, to memorize, to make in my sleep. It doesn’t have to be easy. In fact, it can be hard, aggravating, even tedious to make. I just want to know which cookie I — with some input from the people around me, of course — like best.

Now, I’m going to try to find out. Over the next month or so, Grazing is going to devote a few issues to a chocolate chip cookie bracket, in a nod to my day job as a sports editor and also because I really do think this is the best means of crowning a cookie champion. Here’s how it’ll work:

First of all, I’ll need your help. If you have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, leave it in the comments below of this post, and I’ll consider it in my 16-cookie bracket. (For the purposes of this exercise, a cookie must contain chips, chunks, specks or flecks of chocolate. I don’t particularly like white chocolate, but if you swear there’s a white chocolate cookie that will change my tune, I could be persuaded to be open-minded.)

Levain-inspired chocolate chip cookies

I’ll settle on the bracket over the weekend and share it on Monday. Between then and April 30, I’ll make all 16 cookies and conduct eight head-to-head evaluations, with periodic updates in this newsletter and on Substack Notes, Instagram and Twitter.

On May 1, we’ll move on to the next round of baking: eight cookies, four head-to-head comparisons, more updates. That’s right: I’m going to make the cookies that advance a second time, and the ones that advance again a third time. Which means by the time this wraps up, I’ll be well on my way to baking the champion by muscle memory.

My goal is to wrap the round of eight up by May 14, and then we’ll be down to four cookies. I’ll crown a winner at some point after that.

Whew, okay, that was a lot of logistics. Here’s what’s more important, though: Please, please recommend recipes for the bracket. And do some baking! If you want to try a head-to-head matchup while I do and tell me which cookie you think should win, you absolutely should. And I hope, a month from now, I won’t be the only person who’s gained a go-to recipe.