The chocolate chip cookie is no fad. This beloved American treat is a go-to sweet treat, and cookies in the pastry case always sell.

Chocolate chip cookies come in so many different shapes, sizes, thickness, sweetness levels, shades of browning, and textures. They are their own chemistry experiment, for as you play with amount of butter (or other fats -- which each can change a great deal in the cookie's structure), amount and type of sugar, different types of flours, nuts, the temperatures of the dough when placed in the oven, the oven temperature, and even adjusting the baking soda in the recipe can create differences in the spread and the crumb of your cookie.

Baking times and temperatures make a huge difference, and every pastry chef has a laundry list of tricks to get the best version of the chocolate chip cookie. The variables and combination possibilities in chocolate chip cookie recipes are limitless, meaning that we all have a lot of different cookies to taste-test.