Cookie Tips

Courtesy of NPR.org

Cookies that are soft when fresh, but a box of crumbs with time
Add a tablespoon of water to a cup of flour that's going to be used in the cookies. The two proteins in flour — glutenin and gliadin — grip water and make "springy stretchy, strong elastic sheets of gluten." The gluten will hold the cookies together.

Flat chocolate chip cookies
Use an unbleached flour or a bread flour because they're higher in protein. More protein sucks in more water when they join together to make gluten.

Make cookie batter the night before, a method adopted for the original Toll House recipe. Overnight, the proteins and the starch soak in liquid, the enzymes break the starches into sugar and big sugar breaks down into smaller sugar. Small sugars brown well, she says.

Chocolate crinkle cookie
"My secret weapon is I roll the dough balls in plain table sugar first," she says. "Then I roll them heavily in powdered sugar, so it stays snow white and really dramatic against the black cookie dough. When you bite in, they're crisp on the surface and gooey and doughy inside."