I Tried the Famous $250 Cookie Recipe to Find Out if It Lives up to the Hype

I don’t need much of an excuse to try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. This beloved treat is the top choice in my house. And goodness knows there's an abundance of options out there, in many different shapes, sizes, varieties, and flavors—we have 25 twists on these chocolate-laden goodies in one roundup alone! We’ve even pitted five reader favorites against each other in a cookie taste test we'd all like to be a part of. But when a particular recipe stands out because of the folklore behind it, it’s skipping to the front of the "must make" line for me. I love a good viral moment.

Such is the case with the famous (or should we say infamous at this point) $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe. You may have heard about this before. The story goes that a customer was dining at a Neiman Marcus Cafe when she asked for the cookie recipe after a taste. What happened next has been an urban legend for decades. But it appears we have a glimpse into the mystery in the comments section of the Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on our site.

The "True" Story Behind the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe

As Allrecipes community member Carmen explains, “The $250 story is TRUE! My aunt was the one who was charged for it. However, the true cookie recipe is a bit different. She bought two salads, a scarf, and asked to buy the recipe. The waitress said she could if she paid "two fifty". My aunt assumed it meant $2.50. She called the account office at Neiman Marcus after receiving the bill and they refused to refund her. So, she told them that she was going to have $250 dollars worth of fun with the recipe. She printed it in our family's cookbook, and gave the recipe out to everyone she could think of and told them to give it out to others. So, there you have it. I assure you that the story is true, but like I said...the real recipe is slightly different.”

On the other hand, the official word from Neiman Marcus, as detailed on their site is: “There’s the story you’ve probably heard about our chocolate chip cookie recipe, and then there’s the real story. This is the real one. But first things first: We have never, ever charged for our recipe. In fact, when that urban myth got started, we didn’t have a recipe for our cookies that we could have sold, even if we had wanted to.”

The saga was perpetuated via a chain letter of all things: “The infamous hoax began years ago as a chain letter (remember those?)." (Yes, I sure do remember those!) "This letter circulated around the world claiming that someone who knew someone had heard we charged someone an exorbitant fee for the recipe…in the mid-1990s, as the internet gained momentum, the hoax was resurrected and began spinning through cyberspace. Our executive chef at the time decided we needed to take action by developing—and sharing—a real recipe.”

What Neiman Marcus put out is a somewhat standard (no nut) choco chip cookie recipe that has an added secret ingredient: espresso powder. You can find this version on our site thanks to Ashleigh Scott.

The other recipe circulating under the NM lore doesn’t include espresso powder but has ground oats as its secret ingredient and includes chopped nuts. On our site this version is aptly named, Urban Legend Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Neiman Marcus Cookie Taste Test

I set out to pick a winner, at least in my mind, of which Neiman Marcus cookie recipe is “better” with a head-to-head, bake-off taste test. I followed both recipes exactly, scooped them out with the same cookie scoop, stuck them in the freezer to chill for 20 minutes (my go-to method for perfectly baked treats), and let them do their thing in the oven as directed. My family of taste testers swarmed toward the smell.

Unsurprisingly—because opinions and preferences vary as much as the number of chocolate chips you get in a cookie—the results were pretty much split down the middle. Many of the grownup testers preferred the espresso powder version (along with those that didn’t like nuts) while I preferred the hearty chew of the oats and walnuts, along with my husband and kids. The espresso was a little overpowering for my tastes, and while I love anything coffee-flavored, it wasn’t what I necessarily wanted from my chocolate chip cookie. On the flip side, others noted the espresso helped enhance the flavor of the chocolate which is what tipped the scales for them.

It seems as though the recipe reviewers are on my side, too. The Urban Legend Chocolate Chip Cookies have 840 Ratings and close to 600 5-star reviews. Tips from the comments include grinding the oats in a food processor (as I did). It’s also helpful to throw the bar of milk chocolate in with the oats in the food processor to skip the grating step and avoid a melted mess (speaking from experience). Reviewer Kieran says these are “Our very favorite. Highly recommended.”

The other Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe still boasts 267 Ratings and has close to 200 5-star reviews but trails the Urban Legend CCCs. Allrecipes community member Deborah concurs with my testers’ feedback: “I think the espresso powder really adds a richness to the cookie!”

The Bottom Line

Honestly, you can’t go wrong. We’re talking dessert here. They’re both gooey, chocolatey, and delicious, we’re just nit-picking to find the ultimate "Neiman Marcus cookie." It simply depends on what you want out of your treat. The next time I dig out my flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and semi-sweet morsels, I’m actually not going back to either. I’m baking our Best Chocolate Chip Cookies to see if they live up to the hype as well—then sending a chain letter with my thoughts.