The Secret To A Softer Chocolate Chip Cookie Is In A Simple Flour Swap

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Who doesn't enjoy soft and fudgy chocolate chip cookies? If you regularly make cookies at home, depending on your recipe, the resulting texture of these beloved treats can vary. To achieve an extra-soft crumb, Chowhound was able to secure some exclusive expert advice from Kat Buckley, a United Kingdom-based blogger at The Baking Explorer and author of "Bakes that Break the Internet." Especially when you're looking to lighten the texture of your favorite chewy coconut chocolate chip cookies, Buckley recommends swapping out some of the regular all-purpose flour with cake flour.

According to Buckley, "You can start by using half cake flour and half all-purpose flour, and then adjust it based on the results and your personal preference." By using somewhat even amounts of both cake flour and all-purpose flour, you're able to make cookies that are equally soft and structurally consistent. However, before you start swapping out portions of all-purpose flour with cake flour in your favorite cookie recipes, it's important to understand how each variety impacts a cookie's over-arching texture. Unlike all-purpose flour, which has a protein count anywhere between 10% and 12%, the protein count of cake flour falls between 6% and 8%.

While cake flour contains less gluten than all-purpose, cake flour also includes more starch. Therefore, preparing cookies with this alternative leads to a more tender crumb and cookies with a softer, pillowy consistency. Though, instead of swapping out every last teaspoon of all-purpose flour for cake flour in your favorite cookie recipe, follow Buckley's advice and use both varieties to achieve the best results.

To help us better comprehend how cake flour impacts the texture of cookies, food expert Kat Buckley explains why all-purpose flour tends to be the variety of choice in most recipes. She states, "It contains a medium level of protein and produces soft and chewy cookies. It's also very versatile and has no other ingredients added to it, so you can control the raising agents and salt in your chosen recipe."

Nonetheless, while using all-purpose flour gives you more room to enhance your recipes with butter-specific tips for extra chewy chocolate chip cookies, the right amount of cake flour can upgrade the texture of your cookies in no time. However, since the key difference between cake flour and all-purpose flour lies in their protein content, you may need to make further adjustments to your recipes when replacing a large amount of all-purpose flour with cake flour. For example, cake flour has a finer consistency and tends to absorb more liquid overall. Also, refrigerating this type of cookie dough is extra important. Since cookies made with cake flour are more prone to breaking, allowing the dough to chill leads to sturdier, more consistent results.

Luckily, if you want to try making chocolate chip cookies with cake flour but don't have any on hand, you can simply replace 1 cup of the required all-purpose flour in your cookie recipe with ¾ cup and 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour mixed with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.