The Science Behind Picking the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in Providence
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Teresa and I have similar tastes, culinary backgrounds, and gently warped senses of humor. Occasionally, as entertainment, we’ll take an impulse to the edge of absurd and call it a date, but we also enjoy sharing what we’ve found with our separate groups of friends. I love a good chocolate chip cookie and so does she, so we decided to bang around Providence one afternoon, figuring we’d have a light dinner and try a few cookies for dessert.
We do not have good impulse control.
Dinner did not happen.
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We chose these fifteen bakeries because we knew we loved them for many things and were confident that we’d find some kind of chocolate chip cookie at each. We were not disappointed. I knew we had biases and preconceptions, each of us having our favorite spots. Rather than pretending we could be neutral, I proposed we embrace some of our expectations and it turned a few genuine surprises into something pretty fun. We chose the order for this tasting based on highly scientific criteria such as “I just want that one”, “let’s try another thick one before the thin ones”, or “I really need water and a nap before that one”. Conversely, our ground rules for rating each of five attributes were concise and defined for the ideal properties taste, texture, chew, chip distribution, and quality of chocolate. We’ll try to tell you what we were thinking before and after for your amusement.
The Bakeries
We started with a little bakery on the East Side. We hoped to find a big cookie like the frosted ones on display, but Wayland Bakery only had little silver dollar chocolate chip cookies by the dozen. Our initial thought was that they’d be the plainest of the group and we were pretty close in our assumption. On opening the bag, the aroma reminded us of Chips Ahoy. The cookie itself was likeable if a bit dry, but the tiny chocolate drops were oxidized and tasted like commercial chocolate sprinkles.
Next up was one we assumed would be a final contender. The West Side’s White Electric big cookie is delivered daily from Pain D’Avignon, a bakery in Hyannis. Looks a little underbaked, golden edges with a slightly pale center, tastes of real rich butter, but would benefit from a tiny bit of salt and a little more... something. Great but expected even better after experiences with some of their other products.
To switch it up, we chose the thinnest cookie next. Cafe Choklad’s cookie was more than just traditional chocolate chip, with chopped walnuts that made it richer than most of the others and big oats that gave it more texture as well. The downside was that the oils in the nuts cut into the richness of excellent quality chocolate. It had a standout texture though, and we had to compare every following cookie to it as a benchmark for the right chewiness.
Ok, I love Pastiche. I just do. Like, everything they do. So it was confounding to get tiny, pale cookies that weren’t what I expected. The cookie itself was meringuey and had good flavor, but the chocolate was just ok. I mean, it was a pretty good cookie, but I just sort of expect amazing things from Pastiche. It was weird to have middle of the road expectations to start, but hey, surprises are part of the fun.
So we figured we’d go to their next door neighbor for our next cookie. Scialo Bros does a hell of a traditional pastry selection and its cookie was like a pancake, with a batter type texture and a yellow cake flavor. It didn’t have much of anything else going on however, seemed to be baked at a low temp and didn’t have much color, a little plain next to some tough competition. Good quality big chocolate chunks helped it out though.
LaSalle is another place we had high expectations for. Busy with PC students and people picking up mother’s day sweets. This got a mixed review, with the crispy edges having good flavor but the overall texture being slightly dry and a little gritty with raw sugar. Almond milk. Water. We’re only six in and Teresa is reminding me that I suggested picking up a cannoli or brownie at some of these places. It’s probably just me with the impulse control issues.
Next up, the sister location to an excellent little restaurant, North Bakery had a high favorable bias coming into this. We were a little worried we’d have to call this whole thing off when we didn’t see any on display. Turns out they had just come out of the oven and were cooling on a sheet tray. I felt like I had won something. We were initially a little disappointed that they seemed over baked, but I’m not so sure that wasn’t purposeful after we’d tried them (I say them because we got a second one. I regret nothing). These were the only cookies that had hand- chopped irregular shards of chocolate like geological strata and its richness balanced any borderline dryness from over baking. Also the only cookies to have a little kosher salt on top, the flat flakes like Morton has, not the pyramid shapes from Diamond. Last thought on these was that they had a much more complex flavor than any of the others so far.
For our next one I wanted to see if I could sneak a commercial frozen dough past Teresa. The Blue Room at Brown University bakes David’s cookie dough in small batches all throughout the day and are known as campus favorites since they’re usually no more than an hour out of the oven and still warm. It held up really well against my beloved hipster bakeries; being cooked perfectly golden at the edges gave it a caramely taste found in the better rated cookies on our table. The texture was a little better than ok but the letdown was the chocolate, which was too sweet to balance a sugary cookie.
L’artisan had two cookies to choose from. We had to make a decision as to whether or not white chocolate was acceptable. Both looked pretty good so we went with the smaller cookie with big dark chocolate chips. I should mention that we also disqualified candidates that had M&Ms, because we're serious adults conducting important research. Anyway, we had no real experience with this bakery which made for a couple of nice surprises. The texture was just right for a soft cookie and the dough had either just the right amount of salt added or was made with salted butter. The chocolate quality didn’t hit the mark though, with a texture like couverture but without the cocoa fat flavor.
Before anyone calls us out on including Wildflour even though it’s technically one street over the Providence line into Pawtucket, please let me say just go get a damn cookie from the place, they’re really, really good. Teresa thought it’d be the dark horse among the bunch and it makes me happy to be wrong about vegan baked goods. This cookie was in the top three for complex flavors, with fine ground oat flour sneaking in a lot of personality and something interesting and aromatic we couldn’t quite place, possibly picked up from one of the other good looking items in the shop. Although a little sugary, this had a terrific combination of soft center and crispy edge, the moisture balanced just right.
Small Point is a neat little downcity spot we lucked out on while grabbing lunch at Poco Loco Tacos during the Cinco de Mayo block party. They have a thick cookie, possibly the girthiest of the bunch, and it was baked to that excellent balance of golden and gooey we wanted. Even the edges, a little dark, weren’t dry or crumbly. Here things take a weird turn (and it seems a little odd to say) but we thought this had too much chocolate, taking something away from the aforementioned beautifully cooked dough. Go figure. At this point we’d been at this for about an hour and a half and needed an intermission. Can a person be a little drunk on sugar? Fast forward twenty minutes for the few we’d been saving for the final run.
We expected something pretty ok from Three Sisters based more on how the cookie looked than anything else. We’re pretty sure this was the only cookie to have milk chocolate, which worked both for and against it. The cookie was baked just right but was just slightly on the dry side and the creaminess of the milk chocolate balanced the chew really well, but the milder flavor didn’t have as much of the chocolate flavor as some of the others.
There’s a dainty little sign in front of the cookie in the glass case at Ellies. It reads “fun fact: this cookie has more chocolate than flour.” They clearly have my same idea of the definition of fun. As close to perfect as we’d found so far, there was something that Teresa thought was cardamom and I thought might be a liqueur that gave it a complex goodness. The cakey chewy combo found that just right spot and I don’t know if any of the others were as perfectly baked. At this point I broke from our one at a time structure to grab another bite of the one from Wildflour to see if I could figure out that interesting something else in there and thought we’d have to have sort of cage match to determine which would get a higher number rating. Last thing to note that was worth mentioning was that this was the only cookie to have smaller chips work to its advantage, creating a texture that none of the others had.
I did not expect the huge cookie at Seven stars to be a chocolate chip at first glance. It had that cracked soil desert landscape top I associate with ginger cookies; it shared a lot of other similar qualities as well. I folded this past the ninety degree mark before it cracked and the flavor had some serious brown sugar molasses notes to it which we both appreciate. This thin cookie would be a favorite any other time but we were disappointed to find few chocolate chips very unevenly spread through. To give them the benefit, we might have got an oddball as they were clearly scratch made.
The Final Bakery
Fifteen. Why we saved the biggest one for last, I’m not sure. I worry that we’re experiencing vookie burn out and we won’t give Meeting Street’s gigantic iconic cookie a fair shot. I’ll be honest, I’m a little worried for my personal well being right now and Teresa’s wearing a look of grim determination.
Nope. It’s as good as we’d heard. This monster is the only one that had a distinct cinnamon punch. It might weigh enough to be used for hand to hand combat, but it’s got a wonderful soft center, crispy outside, and overall gooey texture even at room temp that I admired in all of the best rated cookies here. When we broke it in half, we saw a lot of chocolate that stayed the kind of soft you get when it hasn’t been put into refrigeration (making the sugar bloom and become hardened). This might not have been as complex as some of the ones with the extracts or oats, but it was our agreed favorite of the bunch. I fought against this at first, not wanting to have to write some cliched best for last line in our notes. I really don’t want to say something about how a cookie crumbles. It was just damn good, and that’s all.
Notes and Final Thoughts
As a little insight for any who read this and decide it’s an undertaking they’d enjoy, here’s a few of our final thoughts:
15 may have been too many.
I do feel a little sugar drunksick.
We actually spent 2 hours doing this?
Biggest surprises: Wildflour’s texture / flavor, the Blue Room’s holding up ok against established bakeries, Pastiche being a little dull, having not heard of Small Point in downcity.
I need to brush my teeth.
Going back to North to see if it’s usually baked a little less.
We really decided to eat cookies for dinner; can you imagine if we tried to eat real food before all this?
I want to go to sleep right here.
I am definitely having cookies for breakfast. (and I did)
Related Slideshow: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in Providence - 2016
The rankings are based on a scale of meh to amazing on a scale of 1-10.
Texture: What the cookie looked like when folded in two. Ideally, moist center with light brown ring at edge and no discernably darker bottom, minimal crumbs, showing a good cross section of chip ratio, dense and not over-leavened.
Chew: General mouthfeel, specifically looking for consistency of cookie. Ideally not dry or grainy, a consistency that bends before breaking or crumbling, chocolate with fat content that balances moisture of cookie component, and evidence of being in the sweet spot between over and underbaked depending on thickness of cookie.
Taste: Overall depth of flavor. Ideally, more than one-note white flour and sugar, possessing properties of caramelization from being baked at proper temperature, having a touch of salt to balance any bitterness from chocolate or leaveners, and spice that complemented cookie without fighting to take over chocolate.
Chip Ratio: Balance of chocolate to cookie. Ideally, both should be able to be discerned in a bite without one overwhelming the other, distribution of chips relatively even.
Chocalate Quality: Richness of chocolate. Ideally, darker or bittersweet with high discernable cacao content, no runny chocolate indicating cheap oils to cut cocoa butter, not chalky or unable to melt from having bloomed after being put in refrigeration.
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