Cookies are a widely renowned household treat. They are a delicate and delectable dessert, as well as an important way of sharing culture and tradition. But similarly to loads of other desserts, it can be difficult to define which one is the best. That was my end goal, to figure out which would achieve the highest praise. To do this, I gathered a group of cookie experts (a few of my friends) to extensively taste, and run trails around which is the best type of cookies (we made eight types of cookies and compared all of them in a bracket). A judging group of six, including myself; Madeline Diaz, Marin Kauffman Smith, Zola Buhlsmith, Logan Markwell, and Avani Stevens-Rose, a well educated cookie team (sugar loving freaks).
Baking these cookies was an extensive process. The day before the actual tasting event, three different types of dough were made, since they had to sit overnight in order to achieve peak flavor. Chocolate chip, lemon and peppermint shortbread were the culprits in question. The other five types of cookies could be pushed to the second day, the day of tasting.
Peanut butter blossoms with Hershey kisses, thumbprint cookies, almond pink velvet, snickerdoodle, and molasses spice were executed the day of. The cookie recipes were fairly similar by design. So while the flavors were wildly different, the process of making them was similar. All of them required creaming butter and sugar together by hand, because the paddle attachment on my stand mixer hand decided to give out the week before.
The process of making the cookies was collaborative. Some of the recipes — almond pink velvet and molasses spice for example — were suggested by a few of the judges. Due to their past experience baking those cookies, we decided that they would make them. Other jobs were split up; we had to peel around 50 Hershey Kisses, which was an incredibly grueling task. Chopping chocolate and cracking eggs were among some of the other assigned duties. After being baked, cooled, and set on trays that decorated the kitchen table, the cookies were ready to eat.
As we sat down to start the tasting, we realized that there was one issue with our tasting process. That issue was that we may, or may not have, been snacking on these cookies since one p.m. It was now almost five p.m. The collective groan was loud when we remembered that we would now have to eat eight different cookies, that at this point we were sick of. But we couldn’t back down, we had to push through this intense struggle.
The bracket started with setting the snickerdoodles and chocolate chips against each other. A classic grouping. While both had positive reviews, Markwell commented that they would have been better if there was “more cinnamon incorporated into the dough, rather than just in the sugar coating.” Snickerdoodle and chocolate chip cookies ended in a draw, tied three vs. three during voting.
After that, we moved on to strawberry thumbprint vs. peanut butter blossoms. While both were tasty, the peanut butter blossoms lacked peanutness, “It was a disappointment in my mouth, a let down,” explained Buhlsmith. In the end, thumbprint cookies won this section four votes to two.
Next we compared the two shortbreads in the running. One with lemon icing and the other with peppermint and chocolate coating the top. We were all in agreement that the peppermint cookies were just too much, with the peppermint in the shortbread, then topped with a melted peppermint marshmallow, coated in chocolate ganache, and finally sprinkled with crushed candy canes. “The New York Times [recipe] was [a] let down,” commented Buhlsmith as a response to the overwhelming flavor. On the flip side, the lemon was nice and refreshing, my personal favorite. Lemon won that section five to one.
The last bracket was almond pink velvet, which are basically almond crinkle cookies that are dyed pink, and molasses spice. This was probably the toughest section to judge, due to the extreme debate about which flavor was better; it was time consuming and heated as we fought over texture and taste. The almond cookies were great, except for the fact that there was not enough almond flavoring added, making it difficult to tell what they were supposed to be. Because of this, the molasses was almost an automatic winner. The real reason that the molasses cookies won this section was because they were absolutely fantastic. A perfect cookie. Great texture and taste, right amount of crisp to softness. It was an easy decision. A unanimous vote declared the molasses cookie as champion.
After the preliminary round, we each paired our favorites from the sections up against each other. In the end, molasses spice won four to two and lemon came in second. My personal favorite was the lemon shortbread; the tang and sourness was a refreshing contrast to the buttery and sweet shortbread. While others, like Markwell for example, believed that “the lemon would have been better if the texture was different, it was a little dry.” I disagree, shortbreads are supposed to be dry and crumbly.
The molasses and lemon battled hard, a deserving win. The America Test Kitchen recipe for molasses spice cookies is below.
½ cup plus ⅓ cup granulated sugar
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons ginger
½ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
⅓ packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup molasses
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Place ½ cup sugar in a small bowl and set aside. Whisk together dry ingredients (including all spices and rising ingredients) in a large bowl and set aside.
- Beat butter, brown sugar, and remaining ⅓ cup granulated sugar in an electric mixer until fluffy. About 3-6 minutes. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Then add molasses, beat until combined.
- Reduce speed on mixer, and add flour mixture slowly. Form 2 tablespoon balls of dough then roll them in the sugar that was set aside earlier.
- Lastly, place on a lined baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes. Rotate the baking sheets halfway through baking.
