ChefSteps is a team of chefs, writers, and food lovers who develop recipes, techniques, and guides to help people cook better at home.

ChefSteps

A lot of us grew up baking chocolate chip cookies—often following the instructions on a bright-yellow Toll House bag. But despite decades of dropping those chip-flecked butter balls onto a pan, most of us still experience an occasional fail. Our cookies burn on the bottom, say, but stay raw and liquid in the center. Or spread out to form greasy flying saucers. Or wind up crumbly and dry. Or, heaven help us, morph together in the oven to form one big amoebic mass—a cookie monster far less lovable than that cobalt-furred hedonist who lives on Sesame Street.So what goes wrong? Generally speaking, it’s simple to diagnose—and remedy—whatever baking fail ails you. The trick: to understand your results, learn how each step of the process and each ingredient functions. Too-crumbly treats happen when a baker undermixes the dough or has a heavy hand with the sugar. An oven that’s not hot enough can make UFO cookies, whereas a too-hot oven can result in burned bottoms. You can moisten up dry cookies by adding more liquid or by cutting down on flour. For every problem, there really is a solution—which means achieving the cookie texture of your dreams is as simple as learning what causes what and developing your perfect formula accordingly. New to this stuff? Start by re-creating the treats here, which are pretty dreamy in their own right. Perfectly chewy, they have a satisfying cakelike quality, too, and hold together nicely when you dunk them in a cold glass of milk.Once you’ve got them down, experiment with homemade cookies. Tweak and taste, repeat, and then invite your friends over so you don’t suffer sugar shock. Eventually, you’ll land on the formula that represents your own perfect dessert. Bonus: you’ll become a better baker in the process, on your way to designing all sorts of signature treats that are yours and yours alone. Now that’s something you can’t get from the back of a yellow bag. PS: We may have moved beyond the Toll House recipe, but we do still kinda love those chips. Toll House packs in plenty of glucose, creating an ooey-gooey effect that’s pretty hard to beat. Feel free to sub them for fancier chocolate.