The Secret Hack For Soft Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

After a hard day in high school and a walk home in freezing temps my best friend and I would retreat to her family's kitchen. She loved to bake and would often whip up a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies.

Warm from the oven, my friend's cookies were soft, gooey and scumptious. But within hours they hardened, no matter how they were stored for later consumption.

I've struggled with this conundrum since then. How do you bake chocolate chip cookies from scratch the remain soft and yummy for days later?

Liquid Sugar Is Available In Many Forms

I only recently found the chocolate chip secret hack thanks to Real Simple (RS) and writer Lisa Milbrand. The key is one of the latest wonder ingredients classified as liquid sugar.

Except Lisa didn't use glucose syrup or liquid sucrose used in today's modern food production plants. Instead, she used the old fashioned alternative, which was molasses.

She admitted molasses seemed like a great option for her because molasses and granulated sugar are mixed together to create brown sugar.

Yes I love to experiment with molasses, but my own personal favorite is agave nectar. It's all natural and doesn't alter the core taste of the ingredients. I use agave any time I can.

You can also select honey, maple syrup, liquid cane sugar, or golden syrup (sugar, water, and a hint of lemon juice), which may or may not be the best alternatives depending upon the recipe and ingredients.

In her Real Simple article Lisa confirms that, each of the old fashioned liquid forms slightly alter the flavor and maybe the color of the finished cookie.

Maple Syrup And Honey May Not Be Best For Chocolate Chips

While maple syrup might be excellent in an oatmeal raisin, gingerbread and snicker doodles it may not be the best liquid sweetener for chocolate chips.

There's also a downside to using too much liquid sugar.

Granulated white and brown sugar provides a framework and structure for the finished cookies. While you want that perpetual soft gooey texture, if you go too far, your finished cookies will be a mess.

The key is to mix and match your liquid sugar with your traditional granulated ingredients.

Only Sub Out A Fraction Of The Granulated Sugar

Most experts as well as Milbrand say that only 25% of the total sugar in your recipe. If a recipe calls for a cup of sugar, 1/4 cup liquid sugar is the maximum you can safely swap out.

If you substitute more than 25% of the total sugar you risk destroying the structure of the cookie and may wind up with a gooey glob.

When you get good results with liquid sugar, feel free to experiment but alter your sugar composition slowly in order to gauge for yourself how fair you can push the parameters.

Once you find a ratio that works best for you, write it down and stick with it. That amount may or may not work for anyone else.

A Real Life Example

When Milbrand experimented with her own favorite chocolate chip recipe she shared her hack.

Instead of using 1 cup of light brown sugar and a half cup of granulated sugar she swapped out for 1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar and 1/4 cup of molasses.

The outcome? Although she confessed that her cookies were darker than user and looked like she had added a touch of cocoa, they were delicious, soft and perfectly gooey. Plus they stayed soft for days.

Once I discovered Milbrand's hacks for my own recipes, I went a little crazy with experimentation.

I discovered that liquid sugar works great not only in cookies but also yeast breads, muffins, cakes, cupcake and a range of short breads.

Over time I also used the liquid sweeteners in granola, pancakes, waffles and puddings.

One of the reasons I love to bake is because it's a form of chemistry and who doesn't like to play with chemistry experiments?

If you ever want to make your own light brown sugar mix one tablespoon of molasses with a cup of granulated sugar. For a darker version mix two tablespoons with a cup of sugar.

Go ahead and give liquid sugar a try and let me know what you think.