TikTok Can't Believe This Simple Hack For Softer Chocolate Chip Cookies
Do you like your chocolate chip cookies thin and crispy? You'll find the Chips Ahoy! in aisle 6. But if you like to bake your own thick and gooey cookies at home, then you obviously know about good sweets. Getting the result you want is not as easy as it looks, however. Maybe you followed a recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies, setting the oven to 350 degrees without thinking twice about it, and they came out more like little hockey pucks than those soft, melty cookies you were envisioning. If only someone on TikTok had a simple hack for making soft chocolate chip cookies....
You're in luck. We tracked down that very TikTok hack, which comes from a user who calls themself "Benjamin the baker." Benjamin is indeed a professional baker, and they have a decent TikTok following of almost 400,000. Their soft cookie hack video, posted on August 29, has already been viewed 4.3 million times.
In the true spirit of a cooking hack, this one is extremely simple. You only need to pay attention to one thing: the oven temperature. And no, 350 is not the right answer.
For softer chocolate chip cookies, turn up the oven temperature
Benjamin the baker explained on TikTok that chocolate chip cookies will come out softer at hotter oven temperatures. "Adjust the baking temperature to get the kind of cookie you want. It's not just about the ingredients," Benjamin says in the video. "Low temp for thinner and crispier, high temp for thicker and gooier." Sample cookies on a baking sheet in the video were cooked at temperatures ranging from 300 (crispy) to 425 (super gooey).
TikTokers were impressed by this soft cookie hack. "I was today years old when I learned this," user @culinarymisfits commented. "I must've missed this part in culinary school LOL." Another user said, "This is such a cool informative TikTok I love it thanks!" Yet another commenter had an even easier soft-cookie hack: "I just eat the dough."
The blog Sally's Baking Addiction provides the unabridged secret to soft cookies. Choice of ingredients matters, too. Substitute brown sugar for white, as it has more moisture. Use melted butter instead of softened, and add extra egg yolk. Throw in some corn starch for softer cookies, too. But Benjamin does have a point with their TikTok hack. Research on soft cookies has confirmed that hotter ovens do the trick (via Barbara Bakes).