The type and brand of ingredients do make a difference to your end product. What might have worked with one set of ingredients from one brand might not work with another. Like every baking venture, cookies are a science experiment. Find the ingredients that work for you.

Instead of regular brown sugar, use packed brown sugar. With regular brown sugar, cookies tend to come out a bit grittier. With packed brown sugar, you’ll have guaranteed ooey gooey cookie perfection. 

If a recipe calls for one teaspoon of vanilla extract but you know you love vanilla, add more. If you know cookies taste better with a touch of almond extract, go for it. Find what works for you and make the recipe your own.

Plan ahead and allow butter and eggs to cool down to room temperature. Using cold butter or eggs will make your cookies hard.

Using less flour will make your cookies softer, so don’t be afraid to stop adding flour when you feel the cookie dough becoming sufficiently thick.

Finished cookies should come out of the oven while they are non-firm and still soft inside. Avoid poking them full of holes and use your judgement instead. Cookies should “firm up” during the cooling process (10 minutes on a cooling rack).

You should bake cookies according to your recipe but start to check on them at 10 minutes and every two minutes after that. Take the cookies out when the edges are slightly browned. A difference of 30 seconds is the difference between a perfect cookie and an overly crisp one.

If you want a richer cookie, add chopped nuts. It’s the easiest hack for an extra moist chocolate chip cookie with a deeper flavour dimension.