Forbes Traveler has a must-read article
about the world's best chocolate chip cookies. Hey, it's an important subject. The intrepid Forbes reporters scoured the U.S. to find the most delicious chocolate chip cookies in the land. Cookies worth traveling for, like those pictured above from the Macrina Bakery in Seattle, Washington.
"Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors," Mark Twain said, and when it comes to the origin of chocolate chip cookies, he may be right.
One of the most delicious mistakes in American baking history was made in the 1930s by Ruth Wakefield at the Toll House Inn, a bed and breakfast she ran in Whitman, Mass. Intending to create a chocolate butter cookie for guests, Ms. Wakefield broke apart a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar hoping the chocolate would dissolve into the batter. Instead, the chocolate pieces remained intact, creating the first incarnation of what we now know as the chocolate chip cookie, whether it's the six-ounce indulgence from New York's Levain Bakery, the soft oatmeal-chip concotion from the Bay Area's Sweet Adeline Bake Shop, or the toffee version from Marnee's in Maine.
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But what makes one chocolate chip cookie better than another? Or even... the best?
"It's like asking whose Mom makes a better matzo ball soup or peanut butter and jelly -- it's terribly subjective," says Sherry Yard, cookbook author and executive pastry chef at Wolfgang Puck's Spago, Cut and Chinois. "You have your flat and crispy folks, crispy and crunchy peeps, and your cakey and chewy crew, which should not be confused with the crunchy gooey gang. All are 'The Best' -- the key is to know who you are baking for."
We are firmly in the gooey category when it comes to chocolate chip cookies. Flat, soft, buttery and right out of the oven. We've changed our minds about the advisability of reading this very tempting article. Whatever you do, do not click on the Best Cookie slideshow.
