I buy chocolate chip cookies and some of them are chewy and some are crunchy. They taste similar (though not exact). So what exactly makes some cookies crunchy others chewy. I’ve notice it with peanut butter and oatmel cookies too. Heck I’ve even seen soft gingerbread cookies.
If you’ve got 20 minutes, Alton Brown explains it in part 1 and and part 2. The abridged answer is it depends on the type of fat used and the baking powder/baking soda ratio.
also, a lot of people over bake cookies. I can use the same recipe but bake one pan 2 minutes longer than the first. Pan number two will be crispy, pan number one will be chewy. If you want chewy take them out when they look almost but not quite done. Let them cool for a minute on the pan. Result: perfectly chewy cookies.
There’s also a tendency to put too much flour in a cookie recipe. Or not enough. Either one will change the texture of the cookie.
crunchy cookies are the ones some one screwed up making…at least in the chocolate chip department…ok I got nothin
Another question nailed in one. I learned more about cookie texture in that AB episode than I knew existed.
I think the kind of sugar that is used also makes a difference. Brown sugar produces a softer cookie whereas white sugar makes the cookie crunchie.
That’d be because brown sugar has molasses added to it to make it brown. That’d mean more moisture in the cookie.
Does anyone really prefer a crunchy chocolate chip cookie to a chewy one?
If you do you can NOT be friends with me.
This is one of the reasons I can’t stand Chips Ahoy. They’re not just crunchy (unless you get the special super-chewy ones), they’re crumbly! You can’t bite into one without causing the whole thing to avalanche into little crumbs.
Ah yes molasses and moisture.
I don’t know anyone who prefers crunchie cookies…they are mad if they do.
I think brown sugar has the molasses in it to begin with.
Depends.
Chips Ahoy are good for dunking in milk. That is their one function: to serve as a milk delivery device. Plus, if you start off with a big enough glass and eat basically an entire sleeve of them, you wind up with chocolate-chip-cookie-flavored milk!
Me, I dislike most chewy cookies, they seem undercooked to me, and especially so the store bought ones that all have this disturbing chewy yet grainy texture to them.
The average chewy cookies is better than the average crunchy cookie, but I have had some really good crunchy cookies.
Although, the best cookie is a chewy gooey fresh-from-the-oven still-warm cookie.
My dad prefers crunchy cookies, of the store-bought variety. Then again, he also likes his meat dry and well-done.
FWIW, I made the Alton Brown Chewy chocolate chip cookies last night. Once I got my oven temperature right, his recipe made some righteous cookies. As Miss Woodhouse points out, they are extremely easy to overbake.
Brother!!! 
Chewy is better for most, though some Christmas cookies my ex-wife used to make were better as crumblers (uppaka kakor was one, IIRC).
There’s an old trick, of course: put a piece of bread (or pieces) in an airtight container with hard cookies. It will soften them. Or if you don’t want your soft baked cookies to get hard, do same.
My faves are crunchewy. A hard shell, then chewy on the inside. No crumbs, please.
I thought I was the only one in this thread. Everyone seemed to be criticizing the crunchies. I try to bake mine a little too long so they’ll be crunchy. Love them that way.
Tate’s Cookies are one of the crunchiest of store bought cookies. God love them.