From Chewy to Crisp: 12 Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes for Every Taste (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making cookies soft and chewy? ›

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

What do manufacturers put in cookies to make them soft forever? Brown sugar is a humectant that keeps baked goods soft. Manufactured baked goods have piles of pectins and lignans and other water-holding chemicals added to keep them from drying out.

In the center, it's softer. The chocolate gives us a melty, dense mouthfeel. The caramelized butter, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, and subtle notes of salt offer a balanced flavor profile. The saltiness highlights and enhances the preexisting flavors.

How to Make Crispy Cookies. While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.

You don't absolutely HAVE to use bread flour, but it adds a ton of chewy texture to these cookies that's worth the extra trip to the store. If you can't get bread flour, then use all AP flour in its place.

Fat is a very important ingredient in cookies – it tenderizes, crisps and browns, adds color and a wonderful flavor that is impossible to duplicate. Butter, our fat of choice, ensures good baking results and adds the most desirable taste, texture and appearance.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

Baking soda is also present in baking powder, but in a smaller amount, so it has a lower pH level which results in less browning. Baking soda in cookies leads to more spread and a crispy edge compared to baking powder, as shown in the photos below.

Overbaking: If you bake your cookies for too long, they can become dry and hard. Make sure to check your cookies frequently as they bake and remove them from the oven when they are just starting to turn golden brown around the edges.

What is the best chocolate percentage for cookies? ›

Use a dark chocolate that contains between 60% to 80% cacao for a classic chocolate chip cookie. The bittersweet flavor of the dark chocolate balances out the sugars in the cookie dough, resulting in a well-balanced, traditional chocolate chip cookie.

Cake flour is a lower-protein flour; it has about 7% to 9% protein compared to the 10% to 12% protein in all-purpose flour. If you opt for all cake flour cookies, less gluten is formed when you mix the cookie dough. The resulting cookie consistency post-baking is delicate, softer, fluffier, and, well, more cake-like.

Butter is key for most cookies. Not only does it provide flavor, it's the main reason your cookies will spread. As the butter warms in the oven, the dough slackens and gradually spreads out over the baking sheet. It's important to mix your butter well to ensure it's evenly mixed throughout the dough.

Add more complex proteins, like malted milk powder and brown butter. Caramelizing the sugar beforehand brings bright notes to your cookies, but you can further expand your dessert's flavor profile by playing with proteins.

If the baked cookies taste a bit bland (and if the dough is fairly soft and receptive to additions), add salt and/or spices to the remaining dough before baking. If, on the other hand, they're a bit salty for your taste, try rolling the dough balls in sugar before baking.

Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies.

Baking soda

When added to dough, baking soda releases a carbon dioxide gas which helps leaven the dough, creating a soft, fluffy cookie. Baking soda is generally used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, sour cream or citrus.

Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.