There is a deeply complex science behind cookie baking. Aside from the question of butter versus margarine versus Crisco (butter, always), it’s something I never really bothered to consider until a few months ago when I saw it had been given the full J. Kenji López-Alt Food Lab treatment on the website Serious Eats. (The Food Lab, for the uninitiated, delves deeper into the science of cooking than you thought anyone would ever want to go. For details, check out Julia Thiel’s review of the Food Lab cookbook.) López-Alt considered a full 21 factors that go into the making of a chocolate chip cookie. I went back to that article the other day after I visited Warm Belly Bakery and brought a half-dozen cookies back to the office for my coworkers to sample, mostly because the Warm Belly cookies look like no cookies I’ve ever eaten before. Frankly, they puzzled me.
Of the half-dozen varieties I brought back to the office, my coworkers’ favorite was the Mexican hot chocolate, which was fudgy and just spicy enough not to be boring. (It also heated up nicely in the microwave.) The Turbinado sugar cookie wasn’t too sweet, but some tasters found it underbaked. The blueberry-lemon-white chocolate was supposed to be lighter, but everyone thought it was very sugary. Nobody could stand more than a sliver of caramel graham cracker, not because it tasted bad, but because it was so rich and sweet. Chocolate chip walnut was just OK. And birthday cake, made even taller by a swirl of frosting with sprinkles (of course!), looked too terrifying for anyone to attempt.
