The Best Spices and Flavorings for Chocolate Chip Cookies: Vanilla, Salt, Brown Sugar, Browned Butter and Nutmeg

Ruth Wakefield’s original 1938 chocolate chip cookie flavors the dough with just vanilla and salt, plus equal parts brown and white sugar.¹ With so few seasonings, each one counts. Darker brown sugar and browned butter are the best-known ways to deepen the flavor,² while America’s Test Kitchen found that sea salt, once mixed into food, tastes no different from table salt. A little nutmeg is an optional extra if you want a warm spice note.

At a glance

The original recipe

The recipe in Wakefield’s Toll House Tried and True Recipes is a creamed-butter dough with brown and white sugar, eggs, baking soda, flour, salt, chopped nuts and vanilla, studded with semisweet chocolate bars cut into pea-sized pieces.¹ Beyond the sugars, nuts and chocolate, the only flavorings are vanilla and salt. The dough is dropped by half teaspoons and baked at 375°F for 10 to 12 minutes, for 100 small cookies.¹

The flavorings and what each one does

Vanilla

Vanillin is the best-known flavor compound in the bean, and it can also be made cheaply from wood wastes of the paper industry.³ That’s the basis of imitation vanilla. U.S. rules keep the two apart: pure vanilla extract must contain at least 35% alcohol by volume, and a product with added vanillin has to say it contains vanillin, an artificial flavor.⁴ Can you taste pure versus imitation once the cookie’s baked? None of the sources we checked has tested it. See vanilla extract substitutes and too much vanilla.

Instead of extract, you can scrape vanilla bean seeds into the dough or use vanilla sugar. The 1938 recipe just calls for 1 teaspoon of vanilla.¹

Salt

The 1938 recipe uses 1 teaspoon of salt, sifted into the flour.¹ You’ll hear that sea salt is best because it’s purer and tastes of the ocean. America’s Test Kitchen found that once it’s mixed into food, sea salt doesn’t taste any different from table salt.⁵ A sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top just before baking is a popular finish. See table salt vs. sea salt and sea salt.

Brown sugar

Brown sugar does more than sweeten. The molasses in light brown sugar gives baked goods deeper flavor and color. Writing up America’s Test Kitchen’s chocolate chip cookie, Charles Kelsey notes that brown sugar is hygroscopic, attracting and holding water, which makes cookies chewier. Tasters preferred dark brown sugar for its deeper flavor, and ATK’s recipe uses a higher share of dark brown sugar than the original.² Wakefield’s recipe uses equal parts brown and white.¹

Browned butter

Browned butter isn’t a spice, but it is a flavoring. Kelsey notes that as butter browns it takes on the flavor and aroma of toasted nuts, and that browning builds a complex flavor that balances the cookie’s sweetness.²

Nutmeg

In most countries, grated nutmeg is used in small amounts to flavor confectionery. It isn’t in the classic recipe. Try a pinch to 1/4 teaspoon per batch, or use cinnamon if you’d rather have a different warm spice. In the amounts recipes call for, nutmeg isn’t a safety concern; the National Capital Poison Center notes that none of these kitchen flavorings is dangerous used as recommended.⁶ See too much nutmeg and cinnamon vs. nutmeg.

Related

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• Pancake spices and French toast spices
• Too much sugar
• The master list of herbs and spices