Wilton Blog - Ideas from Wilton

Some things are timeless – Elvis Presley, the smell of dryer sheets, and traditional chocolate chip cookies. These are a few of the things that I’ll love forever, but there’s always room for change and improvement. I mean, there are actually some really great covers of Elvis tunes out there! But about those cookies…

The Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Wilton.com is a beloved recipe that has been around a long time. Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed that the recipe had become little tricky, yielding cookies that tasted delicious but baked out very flat and greasy, possibly due to changes in ingredients. A few people commented that they were experiencing the same problem with the recipe, so I got to work in the Test Kitchen.

I was determined to add some height back into my chocolate chip cookies, and I’m happy to say that the new and improved Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe bakes up into gorgeous cookies with bumpy tops, barely able to contain the chocolate chips inside.

Check out the before and after pics, and let us know what you think of the new Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe – I hope that you like it! Don’t forget to check our website for other delicious cookie recipes.

Here are some general cookie-baking pointers:

• The temperature of butter plays a huge roll in how your baked cookies will look. Butter needs to be softened so that your mixer can smoothly and evenly incorporate it with sugar, but there is a difference between “softened” and “room temperature,” especially if you keep your thermostat at balmy temperatures. Let your butter sit out for a half hour or so before beginning your dough. When you can indent the dough with your thumb with only slight resistance, it’s ready to go. If you can push your thumb right through it with no force, it’s too warm. Warm butter will incorporate less air when mixed with sugar, so your cookies might be a little denser in texture. Warm butter will also cause your cookies to spread more in the oven.
• When you take your butter out of the fridge to soften, take out your egg(s), too. Adding cold eggs to butter will cause it to solidify into chunks, making the mixture look curdled. The mix isn’t actually curdled at that point. It’s okay to proceed, but the butter chunks don’t incorporate as fully into the dough, and that makes for a less delicious cookie.
• Too much sugar can also cause overspreading.
• Parchment paper is a handy way to keep your pans clean while baking, and helps to cut down on the number of cookie sheets you’ll need to use.
• Using a cookie scoop to portion dough is super fast and ensures that your cookies will all bake to the same size in the same amount of time. It’s also a great way to store dough in the freezer – mix up a batch, portion it with a cookie scoop, and freeze. That way you can pull out one or two balls of dough for a freshly-baked treat whenever you want!
• Follow recipe instructions for preheating the oven and for bake time. Since oven temperatures can fluctuate a lot, check your first pan of cookies at the low end of the baking time. Edges of the cookies should be golden. If you like a crunchier cookie, bake for a little longer. If your cookies are burning at the low end of the bake time, check your oven temperature with an oven thermometer to make sure that it isn’t running hot.
• Follow the cooling time given in the recipe, and get the cookies off of the hot pan and onto a cooling rack accordingly. Those chocolate chips can really get stuck to your pans if they’re left to cool too long, and there’s nothing sadder than a lost chocolate chip.

Beth is the Culinary Specialist in the test kitchen at Wilton. She spends her days examining Wilton products to make sure that they are up to par, helping refine ideas for new Wilton items, and developing fun and simple recipes. The recipes on all Wilton bakeware and Wilton.com originate in the test kitchen, and it’s Beth’s favorite part of the job. Before joining Wilton, Beth worked as a cake decorator and pastry chef. She’s baked, decorated, and delivered hundreds of wedding and birthday cakes, and loves the idea that in some small way, her creations have played a role in so many celebrations. When she’s not in the test kitchen, you can find Beth cooking and baking for her friends and family, and dining out all over Chicago.