Last week when I was perusing Food Network’s stockpile of chocolate chip cookie recipes (in search of this Alton Brown recipe), I stumbled upon this killer looking recipe from Bobby Flay.

I’m obsessed with Food Network (uh, and Bobby Flay in general). So I the idea of making these right on the heels of the Alton Brown recipe was too much fun to pass up. In case you’re not familiar with Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, here’s the gist of the show: Bobby picks out chefs who are renowned for a particular recipe, and he challenges them to a compete in a cook-off of their favorite dish (competing against him, of course).

This particular recipe is the one Bobby threw into the ring up against the famous NYC Levain Bakery’s chocolate chip cookie.

Dear Alton,

I love your guts. Seriously. I do. I could watch you talk food geekery all day long and never tire of your wit and unwavering affection for butter.

And even though I’ve never tried an “Alton” recipe that I didn’t love, I must tell you that I think you may have a couple of problems on your hands. I suspect it’s your food photography team. And also, your recipe titling team.

…do you have a team for that? If you do, you need a better one.

You see… I’m doing this experiment (very scientific of me, don’t you approve?!) with chocolate chip cookie recipes. I’m taking some of the most notable recipes and testing them out, trying to find the best one. The deal I’ve made with myself is that I’ll follow the instructions for each recipe to the absolute letter. If you say sift, I sift. If the butter needs to be softened, I soften. If you say chop a chocolate bar instead of using chocolate chips, that’s what I’ll do. The point is to make each recipe exactly as the recipe creator intended. That way it’s a fair experiment.