Last winter my feed served up one plain cookie recipe after another. After I had saved off a few, I noticed they differed from each other only slightly, sometimes by just one ingredient. I got curious about how much difference such small changes could make, and thus was born the Great Cookie Experiment of 2025.
I announced my plans and lined up tasters first. I don’t recommend this, as the tasters proceeded to hound me for months to get on with it already.
The Plan
By summer, I had lined up four decidedly similar plain cookie recipes. I cut each one down to make only a dozen cookies.
I used salted butter on the theory that the amount of salt would scale with the amount of butter, saving me some math.
I stirred up one large egg and divided it by weight, using the kitchen shears on the whites.
I used the same brand of ingredients across all recipes, and kept everything else as similar as possible.
I had thought that the cookies would be virtually indistinguishable in appearance, so I was careful to number the recipes and the resultant batches.
The Cookies
#1 (standard)
1/4 cup salted butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 of an egg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
#2 (milk!)
1/4 cup salted butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 of an egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 Tbsp skim milk
3/8 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
#3 (10x sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar)
1/4 cup salted butter, softened
22.5 g confectioners sugar
1/4 of an egg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 + 1/8 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
#4 (no egg!, vinegar!, baking soda)
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
37.5 g white sugar
1/4 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 + 1/8 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
All were baked at 350°F for 10 minutes.
The Results
I had thought there would be a heavy favorite. There was not. But then, the sample size of the tasting group was really small. I encourage you to make your own experiment, and let me know the results!
Cookie 1: 1 vote
Cookie 2: 3 votes
Cookie 3: 1 vote
Cookie 4: 2 votes
