They're not as easy to make as they are to eat

Everyone loves good chocolate chip cookies. Buttery, chocolatey, and sensuous at the same time, they rank alongside apple pie and fried chicken as the most timeless and iconic of American foods.

These beloved cookies can cure homesickness, comfort a sick friend, perk up a picnic, turn ice cream into an incredible dessert sandwich, delight a child away at summer camp, or be a sweet gift for the graduate.

Easy as they are to love, the dreamiest chocolate chip cookies can be an exercise in frustration. Because they are so simple, every step and every ingredient must be carefully considered. A lot can go wrong, and for anyone who has baked and failed, you know that chocolate chip cookies are a lot fussier than the yellow bag of Nestle morsels would have you believe.

That tried and true recipe is for the classic Toll House cookie supposedly invented by Ruth Wakefield at the Toll House Inn in Whitman. As the story goes, the original cookie was an accident. Wakefield expected the chocolate she had chopped to marble her butter cookies and melt in the oven. When it only softened she served the cookies anyway. That led to the first chocolate morsels, and then in 1939, teardrop shaped chocolate chips. If you bake from the Nestle recipe, you'll have a decent but forgettable cookie, a nice treat that is neither too indulgent nor too austere.

Most people want cookies with a bit more character. They like their chip-laden treats either crisp, lacy, and buttery; or chewy and messy, all airy crumb and rich chocolate. Since every chocolate chip cookie recipe starts with the same basic ingredients -- butter, sugar, flour, eggs, salt, a leavening agent, vanilla, and chocolate chunks or chips -- the cookie you end up with depends on your method and the proportions of ingredients. Before taking the project into the kitchen, I called some experts for advice. Marc Haymon, a pastry instructor at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Jason Gingold, chair of the baking and pastry department at the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt., offered some tips on fine tuning the Nestle recipe to achieve the cookie that you really want.

Gingold says that more butter and a little bit of water will make the cookies spread out, more flour will dry them up, and more eggs will make them cakier. He says that baking powder will make cookies rise but to watch out for the salty taste. Baking soda and Silpat silicon mats both cause cookies to spread, while a chill in the refrigerator will help them to hold their shape. Brown sugar draws moisture from the air and keeps cookies moist over time. Vanilla complements chocolate, and pastry flour in place of all-purpose flour makes a more tender cookie.

Haymon recommends using chocolate with a cocoa content of 60 percent or higher. ``Otherwise they are too sweet," he says. He warns home bakers using electric ovens that since the element is below the cookies, it can burn their bottoms. He thinks that for any oven, 325 degrees is an ideal baking temperature. ``It gives you more control and an even brown," he says.

Both agree that melting butter rather than creaming it with the sugar is a bad idea. ``It is creaming the ingredients that generates air and gives the cookies some body," says Gingold. They also agree that even average chocolate chip cookies always taste better with a glass of milk.

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES People who love chippers but would never dream of baking their own know exactly where to find them -- and we want to know, too. If you have a favorite bakery or take out shop where the chocolate chip cookies are incredibly good, please let us know where it is. And are they chewy or crispy? Go to www.boston.com/ae/food.