Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (2023)

FAQs

What is the secret to chewy cookies? ›

Rest the Dough A secret baker's trick is to rest your cookie dough in the fridge. You can rest it for at least an hour, which will evaporate some of the water and increase the sugar content, helping to keep your cookies chewy. The longer you allow your dough to rest in the fridge, the chewier your cookies will be.

Adding about ½ teaspoon of cornstarch for every 1 cup of flour will prevent the gluten in the flour from developing fully. Cornstarch will also help prevent the cookies from spreading too much, making them nice and thick, keeping the center soft and chewy.

“While milk, semisweet and dark chocolate will all make delicious cookies, semisweet is preferred because it provides a good contrast and balance with the sweetness of the cookies,” said baker Annalise Sandberg of Completely Delicious. Semisweet chocolate generally has a cocoa solid content between 35% and 65%.

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

Cookies made with only butter may not rise as much and may spread a bit more, but the edges will be crispier and will have a rich buttery taste. Cookies made with only shortening will result in a cookie that bakes higher and holds its shape better during baking.

Cornstarch! Cornstarch is a key ingredient in instant pudding mix, and not only does it help keep the cookies perfectly soft, its binding properties help prevent the cookies from spreading as they bake.

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. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

What chocolate do bakers use? ›

Unsweetened Chocolate

Also known as baking or bitter chocolate, this is chocolate in its simplest form. It's as bitter as chocolate can get since no sugars or flavorings are added. Definitely not for eating out of hand, this type is intended as an ingredient in rich brownies, cakes and cookies.

For softer, chewier cookies, you will want to add much less granulated sugar, slightly more brown sugar, and a fair bit less butter. For cakey cookies, you will often be including even less butter and sugar.

Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The longer you chill the dough, the more flavor will develop. The flour will also absorb more of the moisture so the thicker and chewier the final texture will be.

Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.

They go from soft to hard because they start to dry out, and it begins as soon as you pull them from the oven. (Yikes.) Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying.

Flour is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising.

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

Using melted butter in cookies helps you achieve a similar fudgy-yet-cooked texture and prevents any unwanted cakiness. Instead of the rise coming from both chemical and physical leavening agents (baking soda/powder + creamed butter), it now comes almost exclusively from chemical agents alone.

Why Do Cookies Get Hard? Like all baked treats, cookies are subject to getting stale. Over time, the moisture in the cookies evaporates, leaving them stiff and crumbly. It's the same thing that happens to breads, muffins, and other baked goods.

2. Brown sugar. Using brown sugar will result in a denser, moister cookie. Brown sugar is also hygroscopic (more so than granulated sugar) and will therefore also attract and absorb the liquid in the dough.

Which ingredient is frequently used for moist and chewy texture for cookies sugar? ›

Brown sugar makes a moister, chewier cookies. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes contain both brown and white sugars. Decreasing sugar in a cookie recipe makes it spread less, but the cookies turn out drier and less flavorful depending on how much sugar you leave out.

Bake it better with Crisco®

Crisco® all-vegetable shortening will make your cakes moist, pie crusts flaky, and cookies soft and fluffy, with 0g of trans fat per serving*. One look, and you'll see why we've got butter beat.

Shortening is 100% fat, containing no water. That means no steam is created during baking which effectively reduces gluten production, so shortening cookies tend to be softer and more tender. Also, shortening has a higher melting point than butter, resulting in taller cookies.

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.

The temperature can be a big factor when storing cookies. Unless otherwise noted, don't store cookies in the refrigerator: The cool air can rob cookies of their moisture and make them taste bland. In general, store cookies at room temperature or freeze them, as specified above.

Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn't enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.

My mom taught me to add a piece of bread to a cookie tin to keep cookies soft, but there's a different trick for brown sugar. Instead of a piece of bread, toss a marshmallow or two in with your brown sugar. The puffy treat will keep it soft without making a mess.

While both baking soda and baking powder are helpful leavening agents, baking soda can cause more spreading than desired. If you're looking for fluffy cookies, stick to baking powder. Baking powder is better known for causing incredible “puff.” Just make sure that it is not expired.

When added to cake, cookie and shortbread recipes, cornstarch helps create a crumbly and tender dessert-like texture. Commercially, cornstarch is often used as an anti-caking agent.

And there are no baking police: If your recipe tells you to flatten your cookies before baking, you just go ahead and do that however you want. So long as they end up evenly flat, that is; squashing cookies haphazardly under your palm means they may bake and brown unevenly.

Should you use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips in cookies? ›

With a 40–70% cacao percentage and lower sugar-to-cocoa ratio, semisweet chips remain the go-to choice. They shine through the dough and retain their shape, giving you distinct pockets of chocolate among each dollop of dough.

While you bake with chocolate chips, they are not the same as baking chocolate. When a recipe calls for baking chocolate, it is specifically referring to bars of chocolate for baking, not chips. Chocolate chips have less cocoa butter and contain stabilizers to help keep their "chip" shape while baking.

Valrhona is one of the top names in premium baking chocolates, and for great reason. In business since 1922, they are one of the brands preferred by pastry chefs around the world.

Adding about ½ teaspoon of cornstarch for every 1 cup of flour will prevent the gluten in the flour from developing fully. Cornstarch will also help prevent the cookies from spreading too much, making them nice and thick, keeping the center soft and chewy.

hi Bob), “Cookies that are dense and chewy incorporate more moisture into the batter. This can be achieved by making substitutions with ingredients, or even just changing the way you incorporate certain ingredients. Plus, your particular baking technique and your method of storing cookies can also play a role.”

To make cookies thinner and crispier, you will usually want to aim for more granulated sugar and butter. For softer, chewier cookies, you will want to add much less granulated sugar, slightly more brown sugar, and a fair bit less butter. For cakey cookies, you will often be including even less butter and sugar.

Why This Happened: Melting the butter first means it will mix more easily with the flour making the gluten form more than softened butter. More gluten = more chew. So a melted butter cookie will have a bit more chew. But they will spread more since the butter was already a liquid.

The most common reason that cookies are tough is that the cookie dough was mixed too much. When flour is mixed into the dough, gluten begins to form. Gluten helps hold baked goods together, but too much gluten can lead to tough cookies.

Vinegar is a surprisingly common ingredient in baked goods, considering that it has such a sharp flavor. But as an acid, vinegar is often included in cake and cookie batters to react with baking soda and start the chemical reaction needed to produce carbon dioxide and give those batters a lift as they bake.

When cookies are too cakey, there are two main culprits: too much leavening (baking powder or baking soda) or too much egg. If there is too much baking powder or baking soda in the dough, the cookies will rise too much when baking, creating a cakier structure. Eggs also promote a cakey structure in cookies.

Should you melt butter for chocolate chip cookies? ›

Melted butter is best suited for drop doughs such as chocolate chip, peanut butter, and sugar cookies, as well as most cookie bars. You can usually adapt recipes that don't originally call for melted butter to use this technique if you're looking for an even fudgier texture.

Thus, if your butter is too cold, your cookies will be denser, and they will likely not spread enough in the pan when you bake them. In general, you want your butter to be cool, but not cold. The right way: Let your butter sit out for 15 minutes (but not longer — see below) before creaming.

Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they're in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.

But when you're baking, butter triumphs over margarine every time. For cakes, cookies, and pastries, butter (unsalted, that is) provides richer flavor. (It begins as cream, after all, and margarine is made from vegetable oil.) Butter's high fat content is also what gives baked goods their texture.

Instead of all-purpose flour, use bread flour. Bread Flour helps make chewy cookies (as well as chewy pizza dough!). Time to bake the best chocolate chip cookies! This recipe calls for 1 3/4 cup bread flour.

Add Corn Syrup

Just adding more water isn't going to do it. But one liquid we do recommend adding is either corn syrup or golden syrup. It helps to retain moisture and will make your cookies super chewy. Add in 1/4 cup of corn syrup to your dough and enjoy how moist your cookies turn out!

They go from soft to hard because they start to dry out, and it begins as soon as you pull them from the oven. (Yikes.) Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying.

Keep Them Sealed

The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here's a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.