I tried chocolate chip cookies from Crumbl and Insomnia and the winner had the best chewy texture

• When it comes to chocolate chip cookies, I prefer a chewy texture and balanced sweetness.
• I compared the chocolate chip cookies at Crumbl and Insomnia.
• The best of the two checked off all my boxes for a satisfying treat that wasn't too rich. 

Growing up, one of my favorite rainy-day activities was baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom. We followed a Toll House recipe that I still swear by today, while The Temptations played from the boom box in our kitchen.

The chocolate chip cookies my mom made will always reign supreme in my mind. They were perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy inside. The true test of texture: When broken in half, the cookie never snapped or crumbled. Finally, chopped walnuts balanced with the gooey semi-sweet chocolate chips.

A growing number of bakeries are offering their own takes on the classic chocolate chip cookie. From the New York City staple Levain to the venture-backed Chip City, it seems cookies are the latest confectionary craze.

Two brands in particular have expanded rapidly since their founding. In 2003, Insomnia Cookies positioned itself on college campuses to win over students in need of a late-night sugar fix. In 2018, Krispy Kreme acquired a majority stake in the Philadelphia-based company, and now the cookie chain has more than 240 locations in the US and Canada, according to its website.

In 2017, Crumbl debuted its 6-ounce cookie with the novelty assortment and frosting you might expect from a cupcake. In 2022, Crumbl opened 363 stores, second only to Starbucks for the most locations opened that year in the US according to the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. Today, the franchise has more than 800 locations in the US and Canada, according to its website.

I decided to visit both chains to see how their hero chocolate chip cookies stacked up.

I started with Crumbl's Upper East Side location in Manhattan

The store was pretty busy for a Tuesday afternoon. A few customers walked in to order cookies right before I did.

Inside, ordering cookies was a fully digital experience. Meanwhile, you could watch employees baking in the open-concept kitchen.

Crumbl really leaned into the "millennial pink" of their branding. The color was on some of the walls and stacks of boxes. The rest of the interior was minimal with clean, white counters and black accents.

At the counter, a screen walked me through my order.

I selected a four-pack box so I could try a couple different flavors, in addition to the chocolate chip. A single cookie costs $4.95, but with the four-pack, each cookie came out to $4.07 before tax.

I waited about five minutes and then an employee brought my box of cookies to the pick-up counter.

My cookies arrived in an awkwardly long pink box. I asked the employee if they had bags, but he said they didn't and offered to place a sticker on the box to seal it. I was more worried about the cookies jostling from side-to-side while I carried them on the train. Looking back, I should have asked them to package each cookie in the smaller, individual boxes.

The store didn't have any place to sit and eat, so I walked a few blocks until I found a stone ledge on the sidewalk to perch on.

In contrast to Crumbl's minimalist store, the cookies were maximalist. Some of their flavors come with icing, like the snickerdoodle I bought. It has so much icing on top, they call it a cupcake.

The Crumbl chocolate-chip cookie was huge, both in diameter and thickness. I could just barely hold it with one hand.

Crumbl certainly mastered making a cookie that looked delicious. But I wasn't so sure it would taste as good as it looked. In my experience, fat cookies can be a hit-or-miss when it comes to texture. Sometimes they have the consistency of a scone rather than a cookie.

As I broke the cookie in half, it was soft and gooey — a tad more doughy than I prefer.

The edges were satisfyingly crisp but inside was too soft. The taste was buttery and the milk-chocolate chips were extremely sweet. I'm partial to a slightly bitter semi-sweet chocolate to balance out the sugar.

Overall, the cookie was delicious, but really sweet and rich. I could only eat half of it in one sitting.

Personally, I like a cookie that satisfies my sweet tooth but doesn't give me a stomachache after a few bites. After eating about half of the cookie, I was so full that I wasn't sure I could muster up the appetite for more cookies. But alas, I still had one more place to try.

Next, I walked several blocks downtown to Insomnia's Upper East Side location.

The store was in a second-floor walk-up space, situated among a crowded street of restaurants and other businesses. It was such a small storefront that I almost walked past it.

Inside the store was also small. But it did have a counter and two stools for customers to sit down.

The inside of Insomnia wasn't nearly as inviting and pristine as the Crumbl store. While Insomnia also utilized the brand color — a deep purple — throughout the space, it felt a bit dark and dreary. The walls could also use a fresh coat of paint. The back kitchen area looked more messy than the intrigue of Crumbl's.

An employee took my order. I purchased the chocolate chip cookie, along with a few other flavors to take home to my husband. Each cookie cost $2.95 before tax.

I'm an extrovert, so I liked being greeted by an employee and interacting with her as she took my order. Crumbl's ordering technology was cool — and I could see how it would be novel and faster for many customers — but I already spend enough of my day on screens.

The Insomnia chocolate chip cookie was smaller and thinner than the Crumbl cookie, and much flatter. It resembled the size and thickness of my mom's homemade cookies.

Insomnia's cookie wasn't as nearly as "Instagram-able" as Crumbl's, but it looked a lot more like the type of cookies I prefer.

As I broke the cookie in half, one side slowly fell from my hand — passing the test for the perfect chewy texture. The chocolate chunks were gooey and not too sweet.

I felt like I was watching the cookie in slow motion as it pulled apart. It signaled to me that the texture would be chewy and sticky.

Overall, I much preferred the Insomnia cookie. The texture was perfectly chewy, not too crunchy or too doughy. The ratio of butter to brown sugar tasted balanced.

The Insomnia cookie was my type of chocolate chip cookie, with balanced flavors, not too sweet, and the perfectly chewy texture. It's exactly what I think of when I'm craving a sweet snack that won't leave me feeling sluggish or sick.

Meanwhile, the Crumbl cookie was more visually appealing, but it was too sweet and rich for me. I also tasted too much butter and not enough brown sugar.

Although Crumbl's cookie was too rich for me, I could see why the company has done well and rapidly expanded to hundreds of locations in the last few years. The company's branding is fresh and fun — pink is an uplifting color. And the cookies are the type of "food porn" people like to post on social media. Aesthetically speaking, Crumbl checks off all the boxes, and that alone can be enough to drive sales.

Insomnia's chocolate chip cookie was the most reminiscent of my mom's homemade cookies.

When it came to flavor and texture, Insomnia's cookie was superior. The company has found consistent growth by planting stores on college campuses and keeping late-night hours to cater to hungry students. But its product is much more than a college kid munchie. Insomnia has established its business as a go-to for any cookie lover with a menu focused on classic flavors.