Food - News
The Secret To Making The Soft And Chewy Cookie Of Your Dreams
By LAUREN CAHN
Hygroscopicity
For a chewy cookie, you’re going to need to increase your cookie’s moisture content and maximize the hygroscopicity. Hygroscopicity refers to how much water any substance can hold, and as it turns out, sugar holds more moisture than flour; the best ratio is two parts flour to one part fat to two parts sugar.
Sweetener
While granulated white sugar is the default for cookies, brown sugar can give you a softer, chewier cookie because it contains molasses. The molasses adds moisture, but also lowers the pH of the cookie, making it chewier; the best ratio is one part brown to one part white sugar, or two-thirds brown sugar to one cup of white sugar.
Flour
Swapping out white flour for bread flour can give you a great cookie texture. Bread flour has a higher gluten protein content, leading to more chewiness, and it won’t affect the flavor of your cookies at all; if you want to ease into it, you can try swapping out half of your all-purpose flour for bread flour.
Butter
Cookie-bakers can rejoice because one trick to chewier cookies is to melt your butter before adding it to your sugar. Creaming butter and sugar incorporates air into your dough, making the final product fluffier and cakier; to avoid this, melt your butter and be careful not to over mix at this stage.
Baking Soda Vs. Powder
Both baking soda and baking powder act as leaveners, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles that make the dough rise and create a cakier texture. Baking powder will act as a leavener on its own, but baking soda needs an acidic ingredient to kick into action; use baking soda on its own to skip the aeration and create a denser cookie.