Eggnog Cookies | Soft & Chewy 20 Minute Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making cookies soft and chewy? ›

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.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

Brown Sugar

Adding moisture to your cookie dough can help make it softer and chewier, and stay soft for longer. That's why I use much more brown sugar than granulated sugar in this recipe. Learn how to DIY your own brown sugar and how to keep it soft in your pantry here.

The bread/apple trick

Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.

Bread flour contains a higher protein content (around 12-14%), leading to more gluten development. This makes it ideal for bakers seeking a chewier texture in their cookies. The extra gluten can help retain gas and moisture, producing a denser and chewier result.

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.

Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier 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.

Softened butter and melted butter are not the same. Using melted butter will change the texture of whatever you're baking. If you only want the butter to soften for spreading, microwave it on the Defrost setting (30%) in 5-second increments until it's softened as desired.

What makes cookies softer butter or oil? ›

Indeed, cookies made with butter are usually softer and more tender than those made with oils. And last but not least, butter in cookies helps achieve that perfect texture. That's because butter melts at a lower temperature than other fats, allowing cookies to spread evenly while baking.

Baking with oil not only requires less work, and results in fewer dirty dishes, than butter, but it also produces tender, moist baked goods that get better with age and boast an impressively long shelf-life.

They're drying out! Either there wasn't enough moisture left in them during the baking process (baked a couple minutes too long), or they haven't been stored properly, so they've continued to dry and harden. I recommend storing them in an air-tight container, like a ziploc bag or a tupperware.

the more you mix cookie dough. the more the gluten develops and they become hard and dry and an unfavorable texture.

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.

For chewier cookies and bars, we melt our butter instead of following the usual procedure of creaming softened butter with sugar. This simple switch frees up the water content of the butter so that it can freely interact with the flour in the dough or batter.

According to The Kitchn, this occurs when you over-mix the dough. Mixing the dough naturally causes gluten to develop in the flour, and while you do need a good amount of gluten to give your cookies structure, too much of it will result in hard cookies.

Hard cookies: you are over mixing, baking too long, baking at too high a temperature, or some combination of these. Cakey cookies: not enough brown sugar, too much or too little egg, too much flour, maybe you used baking powder instead of baking soda?