The Absolute Perfect Chewy Christmas Cookie Recipe! (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to chewy cookies? ›

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.

Baking soda is generally about three times stronger than baking powder, so adjust your recipe accordingly. Baking soda and baking powder can produce cookies with different textures. Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies.

1. Cookies. Cornstarch does kind of incredible things to cookies. I mean not only does it give them soft centers, prevents them from spreading, and makes them somewhat thick (in a good way), but it also contributes to the chewiness factor, which, in my opinion, is the most important cookie attribute.

Bread flour has a high protein content, which may result in cookies with a chewy texture. It provides more structure than other flours and can give cookies that satisfying, bread-like bite.

Soft cookies have a water concentration of 6% or higher – moisture being the variable in texture. To make cookies crispy, add less liquid or bake it in the oven for longer to dry out the dough. Generally bake around 13-15min at 180C for a crispy cookie.

Hard cookies: you are over mixing, baking too long, baking at too high a temperature, or some combination of these.

Brown sugar

Brown sugar is also hygroscopic (more so than granulated sugar) and will therefore also attract and absorb the liquid in the dough. The difference is in the molasses that makes brown sugar brown: It adds moisture and slight acidity, resulting in a moist and chewy texture.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

What happens if you forget to add brown sugar to cookies? ›

What happens when you bake without brown sugar? To be succinct, the resulting baked good could be slightly drier or more crisp. Without the excess moisture from the molasses in the brown sugar, the final cookie won't be as chewy and the final bread might be drier.

Use Corn Syrup

Before you freak out! Corn syrup (and not the high fructose kind) is kind of a baking miracle. It's what's called an invert sugar, meaning it's liquid at room temperature.

Cream of tartar makes cookies chewy, as it precludes the sugar in the dough from crystalizing, which would lead to crispiness (ie: the opposite of chewiness).

You can try adding more egg to your recipe. Eggs make cookies softer and puffier. It doesn't need to be a lot of egg; half of an extra large egg will make a difference in a basic recipe. You can also swap out egg yolks for whole eggs.

According to The Kitchn, this occurs when you over-mix the dough. Mixing the dough naturally causes gluten to develop in the flour, and while you do need a good amount of gluten to give your cookies structure, too much of it will result in hard cookies.

But, it turns out that margarine or vegetable shortening is the secret to chewy cookies. I still make mine with butter, though.