4 Secrets To Bake The Perfect Cookies

The last time I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies, they turned into crisp, greasy disks that my husband thought were more like sweet crackers than cookies. I consider myself a pretty decent cook, but the perfect chocolate chip cookie remains elusive. I try to make chewy cookies with crisp edges and gooey centers. Instead, I get crackers. We’ve cultivated a few key tips from baking experts to help your cookies turn out exactly how you like them, every time.

# Butter

Even if your mother used shortening in her cookies and you prefer to use margarine for all of your other cooking needs, butter is where it’s at when it comes to the chocolate chip cookie. It’s the fat that adds the most flavor to each bite and it helps the cookies spread during baking.

# Sugar Selection

To get a little more science-based, brown sugar is more hygroscopic than white granulated sugar, which means it retains moisture better. Adding just a little bit of corn syrup will yield the chewiest, most uniform cookies you’ll ever see, since the syrup is dramatically more hygroscopic than either type of sugar.

# Chocolate

Chopping the chocolate allows you to choose your favorite bars, which will melt differently than the chips.

# Cool The Dough

You allow your bread dough to rest, and some baking experts say doing the same for your cookie dough can increase the flavor exponentially. Essentially, allowing the dough to rest in the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours or even a few days– allows the ingredients to combine more completely.