6 of the Best Cookies in the World

If you will often have an immediate need was to unleash my own craving and gobble down platefuls of the epitome of consumable indulgences, you are addicted to a soft baked cookie.

Derived from the Dutch word koekje, which relates to the term cake, koek. Having tried softer and well baked Dutch cakes, it is no surprise that soft baked cookies in particular draw from this linguistic and materialistic ancestor. However, most prefer cookies to the cakes (and related substitutes, you might say) due to the texture, and perhaps at a more fundamental level, due to the absence of  water.

Behold 6 favorites of the world, tried and tested.

Ben’s Cookies, London | Chocolate Chip Cookie

This cute store was surprisingly crowded at tea time for people venturing away from traditional crispy and sugar crusted biscuits towards soft baked cookies. I was afraid they would be too crisp, and the slightly-more-crispy-than-chewy first bite was almost heartbreaking. But, on realizing that the cookie got chewier towards the middle, and the chocolate chips were variable in size, thus adding to the unpredictability and enticing my tastebuds further, I was instantly reminded of home baked goodness.

Cookie Man, Mumbai | Chocolate Chip Macademia Nut Cookie

Found in Mumbai, this chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie is its best creation ever, with macadamia nuts that always retain their shape and freshness, evident from the sharp crunch that I come across when I’m nibbling through the uneven texture. With white chocolate being my least favorite, and on finding that it actually contains no cocoa at all, I find it hard to go wrong with it (purists may think otherwise, but frankly, I have no comparison to the white chocolate held captive within the cookie, since I never try it as a standalone item anyway). Its sweetness is a good undertaste to the rawness of the cookie and the chewiness of the dough was unmatched.

Famous 4^th Street Cookie Company, Philadelphia | Chocolate Chip Cookie (and another chocolate chip cookie in fudge dip)

I marveled at a thick chocolate chip cookie that was surprisingly low on sugar, or at least seemed to not be soaked in sweetness, thus allowing me to taste other ingredients, especially the chocolate. I felt the cookie had an unusually homogenous chewy texture, a remarkable victory when cookie competitors often seems to have overbaked exteriors and underdone interiors. The overload of chocolate chips had a distinct taste to the fudge dipped exterior, as my taste buds can easily sense the difference between gooey fudge and cocoa-ey chocolate. The combination of indecipherably chopped walnuts simply added to the variety and made this cookie an almost promiscuous tasting experience!

Levain Bakery, New York | Chocolate Chip Walnut (6 ounce) cookie

I did not know that my chocolate monstrosity would take form in the size of a giant six ounce cookie, without compromising on the taste or softness. Finally there was a cookie sized to match the shamelessness of my appetite. I simply fell flat tasting the underbaked texture, which was a notch above plain cookie dough and a classic cookie, thus creating another category of its own! It was surprisingly not crumbly, given its thickness and beach-beaten-rock-like texture size, which speaks well of its ingredients, and perhaps hints at the dual action of the overloaded butter.

Momofuku’s Milk Bar, New York | Compost Cookie

Admittedly this one did not appeal to me at the onset. The oxymoronic combination of potato chips and pretzels (my least favorite snack, mainly since I do not see the point in something which is both tasteless and hard on the eyes) with chocolate chip cookies and the overall glistening shine of the texture wasn't great. Yet, appearances and thoughtful notions can sometimes be proven wrong, and thankfully so. Although it was a bit greasy, the paradoxical tastes and unexpected crunch in the middle of a chewy bite is what made this a worthy of repeated trials. Imagine a gooey liquefying chocolate chip, alongside a chewy chunk of dough, followed by something resembling a roasted nut, alongside an unexpected crunch of a potato chip! It may sound strange, but the sequence had an electrifying effect on my taste buds. Gobble up! I certainly did.

Museu de la Xocolata, Barcelona | Spicy Cookie

Europe in particular has mastered the art of crispy biscuits, thanks to the generations of tea-sipping snobs (I am admittedly one of them, with my love for tea over coffee) who have popularized it as a mandatory supplement. However, I found a soft baked cookie in the Chocolate Museum of Barcelona, and it was far from ordinary. Infused with cardamom, flax seeds, alongside chocolate chips, almost like a cookie version of a Mexican Hot Chocolate, it looked absolutely inviting. I was afraid it would be crisp as a biscuit and the crackling sound in my mouth would flush away all the notions of a melting cookie. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a slightly crisp exterior with an alarmingly soft interior, the credit to which went for its unusually longer bake time than its American counterparts.

Vosges Haute Chocolate, Chicago | Curry Chocolate Chip Cookie 

The hunky chunky 5 pound cookie was irreplaceable in my recent memory. It was gigantic and heavy enough to substitute weights at the gym, and the texture was akin to a deep desert of luscious dunes, with crevices that glistened with swoops of milk chocolate, and mountains tainted with a distinct yellow curry dough look. The many minutes it took to gobble the cookie (alongside milk) was a salivating climax for my mouth watering taste buds. The crumble of the cookie with a slightly spicy and sweet tang of the curry was alarmingly addictive… and left my fingernails yellow.

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