New go-to cookie recipe voted best by family members Homemade Holidays
By: Eva Wasney Posted: 2:00 AM CST Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025 Last Modified: 11:06 AM CST Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025 Updates

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This article was published 03/12/2025 (285 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This chocolate cookie became a Conroy family favourite through extensive taste-testing and rigorous reviewing.

“During COVID, we wanted to see family and couldn’t, so we thought we would do a chocolate chip cookie contest,” Patricia Conroy says.

“I found four recipes: one was my mom’s, which I thought would be the winner for sure; one was a neighbour’s favourite; and two I found on the internet by looking up ‘best chocolate chip cookie recipe.’”

Conroy made six dozen of each recipe (that’s 288 cookies, for those counting), packed the contenders in numbered bags along with a rating rubric and delivered them to family all over town. She waited with great anticipation for the reviews to roll in, especially from her six grandchildren.

The winner? An internet recipe adapted from baking blog Pinch of Yum, featuring the warm, caramel undertones of browned butter. Although Conroy was slightly disappointed the top prize didn’t go to her mom’s chocolate chip recipe, she has embraced the verdict.

“Now it’s a go-to recipe and maybe one day it will be a generational recipe that’s passed down,” she says.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

250 ml (1 cup) unsalted butter

250 ml (1 cup) white sugar

250 ml (1 cup) brown sugar

15 ml (1 tbsp) vanilla

2 eggs

625 ml, plus 30 ml (2 1/2 cups, plus 2 tbsp) flour

5 ml (1 tsp) baking soda

5 ml (1 tsp) baking powder

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) chocolate chips or red and green M&Ms

2.5 ml (1/2 tsp) salt

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally with a spatula to prevent burning, for five minutes or until butter turns golden-brown and begins to smell nutty. Pour into a bowl and let cool.

Using a stand or electric mixer, beat the cooled butter, vanilla, white and brown sugar together on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs and beat for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, and beat until just combined and the dough is dense and shiny.

Let the dough chill in the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes before stirring in the chocolate or M&Ms. Chill for another 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Roll or scoop dough into 45-ml (3-tbsp) balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9 minutes and let cool on the sheet for 15 to 20 minutes.

— Patricia Conroy

Homemade Holidays is an annual Free Press tradition featuring 12 festive desserts published over 12 days in December. Click here to find this year’s batch of reader-submitted recipes.

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Eva Wasney
Reporter

Eva Wasney covers environmental issues in Manitoba for The Narwhal in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press. Read more about Eva.

Every piece of reporting Eva produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.