What makes cookies crispy or chewy

To nail down your own baking times, bake just 3 or 4 cookies to start. Let them cool sufficiently for you to see if they're the texture you're after. Yes, this seems wasteful, letting your hot oven sit empty while cookies are cooling enough to assess their texture. But how much more wasteful is it to make an entire batch of cookies and then, 20 minutes after they're out of the oven, you decide they're not the texture you were looking for?

Cookies baked on parchment won't spread as much; and their bottoms won't brown or potentially burn as quickly. We've arrived at the end of our chocolate chip cookie journey.

And I can hear many of you saying, "Yes, but my chocolate chip cookie recipe uses butter and brown sugar and makes the perfect crunchy chocolate chip cookie! I have no doubt you can make crisp cookies with butter and brown sugar, and soft cookies with vegetable shortening and white sugar. If you already have your own "perfect" chocolate chip cookie recipe — stick with it!

Like so many good things in life, there's more than one way to skin a cat — or bake a chocolate chip cookie. PJ bakes and writes from her home on Cape Cod, where she enjoys beach-walking, her husband, three dogs, and really good food!

I like this article. I want to understand the science of these, not just a recipe. I just wish recipes would state Grams in metric terms, instead of cups or teaspoons as those are vague. I will not use shortening though, I don't think I its a good thing Hi Ollie, you'll notice we've added gram weights as well as volume measurements to all our recipes, so we totally agree!

Hi Barbara. The vinegar is to help the cookies rise by reacting with the baking soda, which also ensures that you don't end up with any residual bitter baking soda flavor in your cookies.

Happy baking! Hello, too much editorial copy not enough actual recipes. It would be nice to have a title "soft chocolate chip" followed by their recipe and another "crispy chocolate chip"followed by that recipe. Most people don't care about the chemistry. They just want a recipe that works. A lot of bloggers do this. There must be a formula that you follow. Look at most famous cooking books, you open to the recipe. Explanation is brief. I couldn't find your recipe for a soft cookie after reading for a very long time.

Hi Sam, thanks for your suggestions! Some bakers do enjoy delving into the science and learning to tweak a recipe to achieve their desired result, but you're totally right, this approach is not for everyone. Here's our recipe for Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies , if you'd like to give it a try. I disagree. The reason I keep coming back to KAF for recipes is precisely for articles like this.

I want to know why things work and how changing ingredients changes the outcome. Please keep these enjoyable, enlightening blogs coming. I know I'm not alone in saying that many of us become better bakers because of them. Nobody is forced to read them. Sorry, if this question was already asked What temp should the butter be? They were crispy all around except a very small part of the center that was chewy. The chewy-ness went away after about an hour of sitting.

I also used Nutpods Hazelnut creamer for the milk…Gave them a nice nutty flavor. Will I make these again…. Thanks again. Your picture looks so good and I really love the hazelnut creamer idea. Definitely need to try that now. I did make 2 small changes, I replaced the oil with melted butter and replaced 1 tablespoon white sugar with brown, just for a bit of those flavors.

I stored them in a lidded, glass casserole dish and though they lost their crispness, they kept their flavor and remained tasty for nearly a week. All and all, a great little cookie! Thanks for the recipe! I made the recipe and the cookies were delicious! Did you mixed the dough with your hands? I had to do this to gather all the ingredients and at the end the dough became a little sticky.

The final appearance was not the same as yours, mine was more plain at the top. What can I do to make it more lumpy? I used all purpose flour, white sugar and corn oil. All products from Brazil, that can be a little different from there. But I made then again today and worked! The dough was a little less sticky then yesterday using the same ingredients. Hi, The others ingredients were the same as the original recipe. The milk measure is two tablespoon or two cups?

Thank you. Hello, thank you so much for this recipe. Would love to make mine this weekend. My question is this: all the ingredients listed are dry ingredients. This is my first time trying to make a cookie, would really appreciate a response. Thank you so much. But parchment can be used if you prefer. Just made these this morning and followed your recipe exactly. My only substitute was Olive Oil instead of vegetable but they are just awesome.

Thank you very much. I am also on a cholesterol watch, so the fact that there are no eggs or butter is great. The cookies turned out great!

The only issue that I had was needed more liquid because it was such a sand texture so I added an extra tablespoon of I also used maple syrup instead of vanilla extract and turn out perfect. I made the cookies but it turns out different. I made with three trays from the same dough. The first tray was not crispy at all and I thought I have put it too thick. The second tray, I made thinner and smaller but its not as crispy as I thought.

And the third tray I had to adjust the oven by myself and it is works. Thank you in advance. If they need an extra extra long time, then set to warm, place in oven, then turn oven OFF. Repeat until crisp. I really want to know a flour replacement choice that without impacting its crispness. Whats the closest replacement? Try flattening them yourself with a spoon, either before or right after baking.

Let me know if that works! Made these because we like a crspy cookie snd they were good out of the oven but then they got super hard like a hockey puck. I put a slice of bread in to see if it would help. So my experience is they are more hard than crispy. The taste of the recipe is wonderful.

Cookies came out crispy and chewy, easy ,simple and small yield recipe. Only commenting what I did hoping to help others with the questions. I had no mini chips, used regular size, I used Almond milk, grapeseed oil, I loosened AP flour prior to measuring, used white sugar.

I used gluten free flour, rice bran oil and soy milk in this recipe. Took the crunchiness a bit too far for my liking! Ok- these are so addictive. My husband and I ate the whole batch in one sitting. The perfect amount of crunch with chewiness…. Wow these are SO good!

Guessing a serving is really 1 cookie not Not as crispy but I only had coconut sugar and semi hardened coconut oil. Probably should have left them in longer or made them smaller. I noticed later you had 16 and I had 8 so… still crispy on the edges. And very satisfying. Thanks for the recipe!! First crispy biscuits EVER made. The first batch were in for an extra 2 minutes and came out a little browner, but even the second tray was crispy despite looking quite light.

To work out the size of the balls, I rolled my mixture into a log, cut it into 8 pieces, then cut each piece in half length-ways. The biscuits turned out the size of my palm excluding the knuckle-bone part. My oven also sucks so i had to add a few minutes. They were slightly chewy, and crispy outside, but very tasty! These are soooo delicious!! This was my first time ever making cookies, and I was nervous, especially when I finished combining everything and it was very very sticky.

Also, it made 9 cookies. This is now my go-to cookie recipe, thank you so much!! Hi, i just used this recipe as a sugar cookie recipe instead. They are amazing!! The cookies just didnt want to spread out and had an almost oatmeal-like texture.

They tasted wonderful though! Thank you sooooo much for such a simple but awesome recipe!!! Was looking for a crunchy cookie recipe and this definitely delivered!! I have made this recipe 3x this week. It yields a perfectly crisp thin cookie that is all I could ask for considering it is low fat and low cal too. Thank you! I just tried this recipe and it came out perfect!

For the serving, I used a scale to get equal proportions of cookie. These are great! I had to add about 1 T extra cashew milk. I got about 18 cookies — the balls I rolled were about the size of a jawbreaker, or maybe a tad smaller.

I flattened the second batch and they seem like they will crisp up more. I baked mine for about 17 minutes. Really, really good!!! Hi, unfortunately that plugin was causing problems with the site so we had to get rid of it.

Thank you so much for this recipe and for explaining the tips to keep the cookies crispy. Hi Katie. I tried this recipe twice and my family and I love the taste and texture. We may not be able to tell you one secret to make the perfect batch of cookies, but we can guide you in achieving the perfect cookies for your taste. We're spilling all our secrets on how to make soft cookies and how to make crispy cookies—all that's left is for you to decide which type will win your heart.

When baking soft cookies, start with softened butter. Creaming your butter and sugar until it's light in color and fluffy will result in a lighter, more tender cookie. The ratio of different sugars for example, brown and white sugar will impact the final texture of the cookies. Using a higher ratio of brown to white sugar will help to keep the cookies soft—while the white sugar encourages spreading, brown sugar helps the cookies retain moisture.

Different types of flour contain different amounts of protein—while bread flour typically packs a higher percentage of protein, which encourages gluten development, cake flour contains a lower percentage of protein, which keeps cakes delicate and tender. AP flour is a great standard choice for most baking projects, including cookies, but if you're looking for a really soft, tender cookie, consider using a lower-protein flour like cake flour.

Have you ever seen cookies made from boxed cake mix? This is the secret behind those wonderfully chewy cookies. Overmixing your cookie dough will dry it out. When you add the dry ingredients, mix until it is just combined. While we understand the temptation of wanting to bake your cookies right away, chilling your dough will help the dry ingredients hydrate and will prevent the cookies from spreading as much in the oven.