Cookie Tips

Cookie Tips: How To Make Cookies Flat, Crispy, Soft, Or Chewy

has to do with the amount and temperature of key ingredients:

Sugar: The moisture in sugar affects chewiness. The relative amount of white sugar to brown sugar has a great effect on the baked cookie, as the brown sugar has a much wetter moisture content (approximately 35% more moisture). Therefore, using more brown sugar will result in softer, chewier cookies, while using more white sugar will result in cookies that are flatter and crisper overall.

Butter and Eggs: The temperature of these key ingredients helps control how much the dough spreads. Cool ingredients will keep you dough cooler, which results in the cookies spreading more slowly in the oven allowing the oven's heat to "set" the cookie while it still thick and therefore producing a denser, chewier cookie. Warm dough spreads more quickly in the oven, which makes the cookies thinner and crisper. Also, keep this theory in mind if you have the habit of dropping cookies onto still-hot cookie sheets. If you don't want them spreading quickly, use cool sheets

Flour: A high proportion of butter to flour in the dough will also allow it to spread quickly. Makes sure you are measuring your flour correctly. Adding more flour to a recipe to produce a thick chewy cookie won't work for you. Too much flour will make the cookie, firm, dry and tough - you need to control the amount and temperature of all the key ingredients together and that includes the butter, eggs, sugar and flour. To insure that you are accurately using the amount of flour called for in the recipe, use a kitchen scale to weigh it or measure properly: use a dry measuring cup, not a pyrex cup meant for liquid measurements. Fluff the flour with a fork to avoid densely packed flour. Then spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level it with a knife. Never scoop right from the bag as that will compact too much flour into the cup and don't shale or tap the cup as you add the flour or this will pack the flour down as well.

Bake cookies on light colored cookie sheets - dark cookie sheets will cause cookies to brown too quickly and cook too fast. If all you have is dark cookie sheets, try baking your cookies on parchment paper lining the cookie sheets. You'll be surprised at the difference it makes. Cookies also cook more evenly on cookie sheets that do not have sides as the heat flows over the cookies more evenly.

For crispier cookie creations:


Use butter instead of shortening in the cookie recipe. Cookies will spread more and be thinner and crispier. Real margarine works even better.

Use a little bit more liquid in the batter; that will help cookies to spread more and thus be thinner and crispier.

Substitute 1 tablespoon of corn syrup for 1 tablespoon of the sugar called for in the recipe; it will make the cookies crispier and browner.

Use bread flour for drier, crispier cookies and they will be darker too.
Bread flour absorbs more liquid from the recipe than any other type of flour.
All-purpose flour can also make a crispy cookie, which will be more tender than a cookie make entirely with bread flour.

Replace the egg called for in the recipe with milk for a crispier cookie.

Use baking soda instead of baking powder to make dough less acidic.
A less acidic batter spreads more, cookies will be crispier.
Substitute ½ teaspoon baking soda per cup of flour for the baking powder called for in the recipe.
Baking soda in large amounts – more than ¼ teaspoon per cup of flour – does not contribute to leavening:
It is there for better browning
Baking soda neutralizes acidity (cookies will be more alkaline, they will spread more.

Acidic doughs and batters (such as those made with baking powder, which has acids and does not neutralize other acids in the cookie dough recipe) set faster, but do not brown as well. Cookies will be puffier.

Alkaline doughs and batters (such as those with more baking soda) will brown better but spread more. Cookies will be thinner and crispier.

For maximum “puff” and chewiness in your cookie creations:

Chill the dough – that will slow down spreading, cookies will be puffier. Even chill the baking sheet before baking if you like.

Use cake flour instead of all-purpose, it has more moisture and will therefore puff more (cookies will be softer and paler, though).

Using some high protein flour (such as bread flour) can make the dough hold together better, and can make a chewier cookie – but too much can make the cookies flatter and crisper – experimentation is needed.

Use solid shortening. It makes a chewier cookie than a cookie made with butter.
Butter melts faster than solid shortening, cookies will spread more if made with butter.
Even half butter/half shortening will melt more slowly than butter-only, so cookies made that way still spread less than if made with all-butter.

Make smaller scoops (smaller cookies), they will puff better.
Uniform smaller scoops cook more evenly than differing sizes
Use a #20 ‘disher’ (looks like a round ice cream scoop) for ideal and uniformly sized cookies.

Use a larger proportion of brown sugar to white for a moist, puffier cookie
Substitute up to ALL brown for white sugar for maximum chewiness
Darker brown sugar (more molasses) attracts more moisture from the air, and will make a chewier result.

Use yolks only for a moister result – egg whites dry out cookies.

Use baking powder (1 teaspoon per cup of flour) instead of baking soda; the resulting dough will make a chewier cookie. It will spread less, since it is more acid.

Try honey. Cookies made with honey instead of sugar will become soft as they stand after baking. Same goes for cookies made with brown sugar.