Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to Make Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

It goes without saying that what I consider the perfect cookie may not match with your idea of the best cookies ever. One of my favorite things about making cookies from scratch is you can easily adjust the ingredient ratios to change the outcome to your liking.

Here are a few tips to customize chocolate chip cookies:

Crispy or Soft?

• Brown sugar makes cookies thicker and softer while granulated (white) sugar makes them thinner and crispier. Adjust the ratio to change the texture and spread.
• Baking time and how you cool your cookies can affect whether they turn out crispy or soft. If you like soft cookies, bake just until the edges feel barely firm and then cool the cookies only for 3 minutes or so on the baking sheet before removing them to a cooling rack. If you bake the cookies until they are firm all the way through or you leave them cooling on the baking sheet for a long time they will become crispy or even hard.
• Cookie recipes that use liquid fat, like olive oil based cookies, tend to stay soft inside for days. Oil is 100% fat compared to butter with only 80% fat. Plus it is liquid at room temperature so it gives a moister texture.

Thick or Thin?

• Because shortening melts at a higher temperature than butter, cookies made with shortening tend to spread less giving you a thicker cookie.
• Baking powder will also give you a thicker, softer cookie where baking soda will help the cookie to spread out, get chewier and add more browning. Be careful with this one as the two ingredients are not a one to one swap. 1 teaspoon of baking powder swaps with only ¼ teaspoon of baking soda. And your cookie will need an acid like brown sugar to react with the baking soda.
• If your cookies are spreading too much, warm cookie dough might be the culprit. Chilling your dough before baking can make your cookies come out thicker. It also improves flavor and color usually as it gives time for the flour to absorb the moisture.
• Another trick for thick cookies is to increase the oven temperature, like in my Levain cookie recipe. A higher temperate sets the outside of the cookie before the inside is baked and it stops them from spreading.

Like Chewy Cookies?

• Look for recipes that use melted butter or even browned butter. Butter is made up of about 20% water and melting reduces that leaving you with a chewier cookie.