The Chocolate Chip Off!

Yes! My blog has a new look. I’m still working on it, focusing more on the recipes, but I’ll still have stories. Recipes are now easier to find with a drop down menu. I am working on making them even easier to access by putting them in an easy to print format. I’m not done yet, so please bear with me, this stuff takes time!And now on to the most important thing, Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookies are one thing Americans can agree on, right?

Nope.

I always thought Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies were great. Then people started getting fancy schmancy. Mrs. Fields started it years ago, and every one else followed suit because cooking and baking are today what competitive sports were yesterday.

Now, I’m hearing that the Nestle semi sweet chocolate chips I grew up with and loved are not good enough. The chocolate has to be 60% cacao and bittersweet, or chunks. What the hell?

Poor Ruth Wakefield, the originator of the humble chocolate chip cookie at the original Toll House Inn, in Whitman, Mass is probably turning in her grave because people are second guessing her brilliance.

And, while I have apparently been living in a cave, the competition has ramped up significantly the past few years. The New York Times food section has printed numerous articles about whichever recipe is taking the country by storm. There are chocolate chip cookies with discs of chocolate, cookies with chunks of chocolate, there are shortbread chocolate chip cookies rolled in coarse sugar, and cookies you have to slam against the oven to make sure they fall. It’s dizzying!

So, I figured I would test the most popular recipes myself, with people so used to getting free food all the time, they won’t be easily impressed — radio show hosts. And since I happen to work at iHeartMedia, where there are no less than six live morning shows going on at once, I have the perfect testing ground! This may be the worst idea I’ve ever had. I’m exhausted already and my refrigerator is on Cookie Dough Overload.

So, this morning, I’m taking my cookies to Ellen K, Ryan and Darlene on KOST 103.5, to Big Boy’s Neighborhood on REAL92.3, to Valentine, Jillian and Kevin on MYFM – 104.3, to ALT98’s The Woody Show, and to KFI 6 40 AM’s Neil Saavedra and Bill Handel. I missed KIIS-FM’s Sisanie and Tanya, but maybe tomorrow I can get their opinions.

I’m very curious to hear what Neil Saavedra has to say because he does the Fork Report on KFI, every Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m., and appears to love food as much as I do, if not more. We were talking cookies on the elevator and he says he uses large granule brown sugar in his chocolate chip cookies and they are fabulous. Now I want to try those too!

I’m giving each of the hosts forms to fill out to see which cookie is their favorite and then on Friday morning, I’ll post the winning cookie, the recipe and all the tips I learned about making chocolate chip cookies so you’ll have the info in time for National Chocolate Chip Day, May 15th. Someone asked me to make a Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie, and I almost did, but ran out of energy. Sorry my vegan friends.

Here are the contenders.

1. The Basic Toll House Cookie – Ruth Graves Wakefield
2. Salted Butter and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies by Alison Roman
3. The Infamous Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies
4. Sara Kieffer’s Pan Banging Giant Crinkled Chocolate Chip Cookies

I even plunked down the 20 bucks, plus shipping on Amazon, for 2 pounds of Jacques Torres Chocolate discs. But I also bought a bag of Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels that are 53 percent cacao just to give Ruth Wakefield’s cookies, and Nestle, a fighting chance.

The worst part is I was up at 3 making sure it all gets baked. I have many thoughts on this and can’t wait to share them tomorrow!

May the best cookie win!