We Asked 5 Celebrity Chefs To Share Their Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
You'd think there would only be a few ways to bake chocolate chip cookies—but ask five celebrity chefs, and you'll get five totally different answers. No, really:
For Iron Chef and restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian, he had his two daughters (Madeline and Anna) do the work, sharing their secret ingredient: brown sugar. For Restaurateur and owner of Millie Peartree Catering Millie Peartree, she goes for quick-cooking oats to get a chewier consistency, while four-time James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Zimmern uses corn syrup, sugar, and brown sugar to create a crispy cookie. Meanwhile, executive chef and restaurateur Judy Joo aspires for the gigantic Levain-style cookies by making gooey-cakey cookies. Finally, Former Man v. Food host and chef Adam Richman doesn't mess around with classics and makes the recipe straight off the Toll House cookie bag—no, really.
Geoffrey Zakarian
Geoffrey invited two very special sous chefs for his cookies: his daughters! "Madeline's the baker in the family," Anna said as Madeline manned the KitchenAid. Their favorite chocolate chip cookie includes brown sugar and white sugar, which yields a crispy-chewy cookie.
"The real secret to a good chocolate chip to have that nice balance is the mixture of white sugar and brown sugar," Zakarian explained. "The brown sugar has an ingredient in it that makes it nice and soft, it's called molasses."
Donate to Geoffrey's charity of choice, City Harvest.
Judy Joo
Chef Judy loves Levain-style gigantic chocolate chip cookies—in fact, she said it's the only food she lines up for. "It's because they're the perfect combination of gooey versus cakey and they're really big," Judy said. (We at Delish can attest that Levain-style cookies are indeed one of the few foods worth lining up for.)
The secret to making this famous cookie? Cold, cubed butter and a mixture of cake flour with regular flour. "The cake flour makes it nice and soft, and is a bit more tender—but you need the regular flour for the protein content so it has a structure," Judy continued. For the finishing touch to her cookies, she adds a mix of semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolate and a handful of walnuts. The end result are gigantic near-baseball sized cookies with a melty, soft interior.
Donate to Judy's charity of choice, the Tory Burch Foundation.
Millie Peartree
Chef Millie is all about the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Quick-cooking oats are her secret weapon to the chewiest cookie in the bunch. "I like oatmeal," Millie said: "But I wanted to combine oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies."
Speaking of chocolate: Millie doesn't mess around with it. "It's very important, in my opinion to use baker's chocolate versus chocolate chips only cause they have stabilizers in it. When we eat chocolate chunk cookies we want to have a good bite of chocolate in every nook and cranny of the cookie." The final product? A chonky, warm cookie that won't last a minute in your house.
Donate to Millie's fundraiser, Full Heart Full Bellies.
Andrew Zimmern
Andrew has a few recipes he could share, but he chose his family's favorite recipe: a crunchy, chewy, caramelized cookie. "This is the recipe that I make—not for me—but for my family because it's the one they love; especially my son," Andrew said. "I tend to get really crafty and oblique with chocolate chip cookies, but this recipe is tried and true."
To get the crisp cookie his family loves, he adds sugar, brown sugar, and corn syrup. When the different sweeteners melt and caramelize, it adds layers of crispness. "The corn syrup makes sure there's chewiness in there."
Andrew finishes the cookies off with bitter-sweet chocolate (but highly recommends taking your favorite chocolate bar and breaking it off into your dough) and pecans. "I love 'em. Sorry, walnut people," Andrew joked.
Donate to one of Andrew's partners & philanthropies here.
Adam Richman
Adam Richman is a no-nonsense cook. He is so no-nonsense, in fact, he goes straight for the recipe off of the Toll House chocolate chip bag. "The truth of the matter is I don't have my own recipe, I always used the one on the back of the Toll House box," Adam said. That doesn't mean he makes the cookies according to the instructions though—he takes half the dough and makes a massive pizookie (yes, a pizza-cookie).
With Adam's recipe you get the best of both cookie worlds: individual cookies for us greedy monsters who refuse to share and a large skillet cookie topped with ice cream and chocolate when we're feeling generous.
Donate to Adam's charity of choice, No Kid Hungry.
You Might Also Like
