Can there be only one?

At last count, there are over 100 “best” chocolate chip cookie recipes in the EYB Library. That doesn’t even include the recent craze of Levain Bakery copycat recipes, or recipes describing themselves as “perfect” chocolate chip cookies.

Browsing through the Library, we see that some authors are convinced that they have created the best cookie for any occasion. See, for example, The best chocolate chip cookies ever from Savory Sweet Life:  by Alice Currah or The best chocolate chip cookies. Ever. from Food Wishes by John Mitzewich and Alton Brown (the extra period must mean these are better). Dominic Franks puts emphasis on his ‘best’ recipe with a pseudo-curse word. Cook’s Illustrated, not content with being the best, says that theirs are Perfect chocolate chip cookies. You can’t get better than that. Well, except for the other dozen recipes that claim the same title. The claims suggested by these titles evoke visions of cookies doing battle with katanas until only one emerges with the Prize

Other authors are more humble. Dorie Greenspan notes that these cookies are her best, not necessarily the best ever, and the authors of Making Chocolate: From Bean to Bar to S’more, question themselves with Maybe the very best chocolate chip cookies. Jeffrey Steingarten reflects optimism that he may find a better version than the Best so far chocolate chip cookies.

It seems that every few years a new “best” chocolate chip cookie is born. Recently it was “pan bang” cookies, and this year the pendulum has swung all the way back to super thick and chewy ala the Levain model. This seesawing spawns the obvious question: can there really be only one best chocolate chip cookie? For Genevieve Ko, Cooking Editor of The L.A. Times, the answer is no.

Ko writes that, at least in the U.S. where chocolate chip cookies were invented and remain perennially popular, “chocolate chip cookie trends are a reflection of the times.” Because we will require fortitude in the coming year, says Ko, we need a hearty cookie, but while “we were slamming pans the last few years, we needed a cookie that helped us look away from harsh realities and into screens of magical dough wrinkles.”

While people argue which version is the best ever, the only author I would never question is Maida Heatter. Anyone who lives to the age of 102 while never losing her joie de vivre is on to something. Perhaps I’ll bake a batch of Positively-the-absolute-best-chocolate-chip cookies tonight.