A lot of food trends engulfed us during the months of quarantining-in-place that many of us endured – banana bread, sourdough bread, bread in general! At our home, we indulged in our love of chocolate chip cookies and tried out several recipes between my daughter and I. And with today being National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, I thought I’d share four of the recipes we tried and what we liked the best!

This recipe from Modern Honey mimics the famous, hugely fat and hugely chocolatey cookies of New York City’s Levain Bakery. I’ve had these cookies in NYC and at their branch in Washington, D.C. For me, it’s like a decadent meal. So I asked my daughter A to give it a go. To be sure this recipe comes pretty close to the original Levain cookies, but it felt a little bit on the drier side for my taste. Maybe that’s our baking weakness, who knows! So we made this once but then didn’t do it again.

If you want to read the author’s whole story and how she made this recipe step-by-step, be our guest! If you want to get straight to the recipe, here it is!

My daughter A made some improvements upon this recipe, swapping the 1 cup of Cold Butter for 1 cup of butter-flavored Crisco, adding a touch more salt and making the cookie size smaller. They’re pretty yummy, but it’s like a cookie ball instead of a flatter cookie, which is what I prefer. This improved version is daughter A’s favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

1 cup cold butter cut into small cubes

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups cake flour*

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups chocolate chips

2 cups walnuts roughly chopped (optional)

Preheat the oven to 410 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream together cold cubed butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes or until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Stir in flours, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just combined to avoid overmixing. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Separate dough into large balls and place on lightly covered cookie sheet. They are bigger than you think! You will fit 4 cookies on one large cookie sheet. The dough makes 8 extra large cookies.

The tried-and-true Doubletree chocolate chip cookie recipe was what my daughter tackled next (I must say I love that she took on baking duties during peak quarantine time as a refuge from the drudgery of virtual learning and the loss of her senior year of high school. Silver linings, amirite?). We enjoyed this one but were not wowed. It’s certainly a solid recipe, but there was nothing particularly decadent about it that made it into our go-to.

Here it is from hilton.com:

½ pound butter, softened (2 sticks)

¾ cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

¾ cup packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 ¼ teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 ¼ cups flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Pinch cinnamon

2 2/3 cups Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 3/4 cups chopped walnuts

Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add eggs, vanilla and lemon juice, blend with mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping down bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, blending for about 45 seconds. Don’t overmix.

Remove bowl from mixer and stir in chocolate chips and walnuts. Portion dough with a scoop (about 3 tablespoons) onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 2 inches apart.

Preheat oven to 300°F. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and the center is still soft. Remove from oven and cool on a baking sheet for about 1 hour. Cook’s note: You can freeze the unbaked cookies, and there’s no need to thaw. Preheat the oven to 300°F and place frozen cookies on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake until edges are golden brown and center is still soft.

Makes 26 cookies

As my family became more and more vaccinated and we felt a bit more comfortable leaving our homes, our chocolate chip cookie recipe spree started to slow down. Still, I got on a Claire Saffitz (a renowned pastry chef who worked for Bon Appetit and the New York Times Cooking) kick and got a little obsessed with her perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe video. Then I tried it. It IS good. However my family did not like it as much as me. It produced a much bigger, flatter cookie with crispy edges and a chewier center. Plus, browning the butter definitely upped the flavor.

I did like this recipe, but it's pretty specific in its ingredients, amounts and method of preparation, and frankly I'm not a dedicated baker. I'm kind of a lazy, give-me-the-cookies-right-now kind of a baker, haha! So that's why it's not my favorite.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the recipe:

2 sticks unsalted butter (8 oz/ 227 g), cut into tablespoons

2 tablespoons heavy cream, half and half, or whole milk (1 oz/ 28 g)

2 cups all-purpose flour (9.2 oz/ 260 g)

2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt (0.22 oz/ 6g)

1 teaspoon baking soda (0.21 oz/ 6g)

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar (5.3 oz/ 150g)

3/4 cup granulated sugar (5.3 oz/ 150g)

2 large eggs (3.5 oz/100g), cold from the refrigerator

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

5 ounces (142g) bittersweet chocolate disks, half coarsely chopped

5 ounces (142g) milk chocolate disks, half coarsely chopped

Instructions

Watch the video. It’s worth it. :)

I don’t know the origin of this recipe. I’m sure once you read it, you may say, hey, that’s *THIS* recipe and identify it as such. I only have a well-worn print out of an email she sent me back in 2013 where she wrote out the recipe for me after I scarfed down way too many of these cookies during a visit to my brother's home. It’s one of those print outs that’s wrinkled, stained by butter and dough and so well-beloved that I refuse to print out a clean sheet of it!

This is my favorite recipe and remains so after all the other ones we tried. Why? I guess because it has the best memories attached to it. And isn’t that what makes a dessert, a meal, a cookie so special? When it tastes good and you have good memories of it? So without further ado, here you go!

1 1/4cups firmly packed light brown sugar

¾ cup butter-flavor Crisco

2 tbsp milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 ¾ cup all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¾ tsp baking soda

1 cup Nestle Semi-Sweet chocolate chips (if nuts are omitted, add an additional ½ cup chocolate chips)

1 cup pecan pieces (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine brown sugar, butter-flavor Crisco, milk and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat in egg. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Add gradually to the creamed mixture at low speed. Beat until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using) with a spoon. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls (about 2 measuring tablespoons of dough) three inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies (cookies will appear moist, but do not overbake) or 11-13 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool for two minutes on a baking sheet before removing foil.

Makes about three dozen cookies.