These Cookies Blew My Mind

Here's the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you'll ever need

I had never heard of Enneagram Types before our friends Whit and Andy B*. came over for dinner a week ago, but apparently she was a “Three,” an Achiever, and he was a “Five,” an Investigator. This is relevant not only because from that point forward I started hearing mentions of the types all over the place (most notably from Chelsea on The White Lotus: “I’m a 9, which means I’m a peacemaker”), but because Andy B. is a world-class baker, and the guest charged with bringing dessert to my house that night, and I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: The Best Bakers are Number Fives.

*not to be confused with my husband Andy W.

Of course I already knew Andy was an amazing baker, which is why I had asked him to bring dessert in the first place. He’s an obsessive bread maker who takes notes on every single loaf he produces, along with printed photos, in a massive three-ring binder, and includes details on the weather, the exact temperature, and any relevant oven differences. (This tracks with the official description of a Number Five on the Enneagram website which says, in part, that they are “always searching, and they do not accept received opinions and doctrines, feeling a strong need to test the truth of most assumptions for themselves.”) Andy’s sourdoughs are legendary, and are gifted pre-sliced because he owns his own bread slicing machine. Last December, just before the holidays, Whit showed up at our apartment with multiple craft boxes that Andy had packed with gingerbread and chocolate chip cookies. There was a little condensation on one of the lid’s cellophane windows, and since I live by a hard-and-fast rule that requires me to eat a still-warm baked good as soon as it’s presented to me, I ate a chocolate chip cookie, and immediately vowed: I will do whatever it takes to replicate this in my own kitchen.

The cookie was just the right balance of cakey and chewy — like right in the perfect middle, bending, not snapping, when I split it in half for milk dunking. The chocolate chips were not the usual little pops so much as they were explosions of deep, velvety, luxurious cocoa. And a judicious sprinkling of bright sea salt gave it the finishing sparkle.

One day I will write about how I just know when I’ve met a recipe I will spend the rest of my life with, and this is what happened with that chocolate chip cookie in that moment.

If you have been around Dinner: A Love Story long enough, though, you are probably waving a thousand red flags at your screen right now. You know that even though I am a pretty decent cook, I’ve always been just an OK baker because I lack whatever patience gene is required to, for instance, let things rise or cool or set or proof. (This affects my whole life, btw, not just my baked goods.) I mean, I make a great banana bread and a semi-great challah, but the baking recipes I favor tend to have a certain forgiving aspect to them — they are quick breads or no-knead breads or one-bowl cakes. The kinds of recipes that are written, perhaps, for Number Threes, people like Whit and me, who, if I am to believe Mr. Enneagram, are more results-oriented, more concerned about getting things done than getting things perfect.

These cookies, though, I just knew — I could just taste — were not going to be that kind of recipe. They were very obviously written for and by a Number Five like Andy. There was going to be precision and patience involved, I would likely have to bring things to room temperature, and I was definitely going to have to dig out the digital scale from the back of my cabinet. I don’t know a lot but I know a Number Five would weigh ingredients down to the gram and would never deign to use cup measures like me and just, like, hope for the best.

There is no leaving things to chance for Andy. “I will research all the things, make spreadsheets, keep notes, and make sure I get the best/most appropriate chocolate, butter, ratios,” he said. “It’s not just about the result, although results matter. It’s also about the process of researching and reflecting on the result to make changes for next time. I don’t know if I speak for all #5’s, but those things come naturally to me.”

If it’s not already clear, those things do not come naturally to me. In fact, I related much more to a follow-up text about his wife: “Whit just grabs whatever flour, butter, and chocolate are around and wings it,” he said. “You will never see me using no-name uncultured butter and Nestle chips like the woman I love.” Whit has no problem with this characterization. “Our Enneagrams make us a great balance,” she said. “He researches and plans and perfects, I push things forward.”

Determined to channel both of them, I secured the recipe and set to work procuring the exact brands of chocolate, butter, and flour Andy recommended — INGREDIENTS MATTER he wrote, yes of course in all caps — and then a few days later, followed his instructions to the letter. In a shock to not a single real baker reading this: They turned out spellbindingly, stunningly perfect. This Number Three is never going back.

Andy B’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
This recipe makes approximately 36 cookies