Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes | Taste of Home (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a good cookie? ›

The caramelized butter, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, and subtle notes of salt offer a balanced flavor profile. The saltiness highlights and enhances the preexisting flavors. But what makes for the perfect chocolate chip cookie? You get what you pay for, and high-quality ingredients equate to a high-quality product.

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies.

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.

A good cookie should have a balanced mix of sweetness, saltiness, and richness from the butter and other ingredients. Butter: Butter is an essential ingredient in many cookie recipes, and high-quality butter can make a big difference in the flavor and texture of a cookie.

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.

Some people like them soft and chewy, while others prefer them crispy and crunchy.

In this recipe we're using cornstarch instead of baking powder. Cornstarch has a unique ability to add tenderness and moisture to baked goods. In this recipe, it helps create a delightful melt-in-your-mouth texture that sets these cookies apart from the rest and makes them extra chewy.

What happens if too much butter is in cookies? ›

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

Cookie temperatures fluctuate, with some recipes as low as 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and a few as high as 425 degrees Fahrenheit, but most recipes land on 375 or 350 to evenly bake the entirety of the cookie.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

For soft cookies, use: Brown sugar, as it has a high moisture content and retains moisture better than white sugar. Also, when combined with eggs, brown sugar can prevent spreading (taller cookies tend to be softer and fluffier). Shortening instead of butter or in addition to butter.

Cream your butter and sugar well

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.

The Quality Ingredients

Ingredients like butter, eggs and sugar can either make sweet cookie perfection or something you wouldn't want to share with your friends and family. Always look for a cookie that's made with premium ingredients. If the cookie contains some organic ingredients even better.

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As Levy Beranbaum writes in The Baking Bible, replacing a little bit of the flour in the dough with cornstarch results in “a more delicate cookie that is also easier to pipe or push through a cookie press.” Adding cornstarch helps tenderize tough gluten, contributing to a softer cookie dough with a finer crumb after ...

Using brown instead of white sugar will please those who prefer a soft and chewy cookie. Brown sugar absorbs moisture after baking which helps to maintain a nice soft and chewy texture. Substituting vegetable shortening for butter, in part or in its entirety is also a key.