Chewy vs Crispy Cookies: Know The Mistakes To Avoid For Perfect Textures
Written by jheelum basu | December 26, 2025
In the dessert world, cookies are an example of diversity. From flavors and aromas to taste and texture, cookie recipes are all about exploring variety. And when it comes to textures, possibilities are endless. Ranging from soft, moist, and chewy to crisp, cakey, and crumbly, everything is possible with different combinations of ingredients and baking techniques.
However, the chewy and crispy cookies are the most popular options when it comes to baking cookies. While the recipes are truly simple, perfection comes with a lot of skill, knowledge, and patience. Following the recipe indeed is the first rule. But knowing which mistakes to avoid is crucial as well.
Chewy Cookies Vs Crispy Cookies: Know The Difference
Besides taste and flavor, it is the texture that defines how satisfying a cookie is. And, when it comes to textures, from soft and chewy to thin and crispy, the options are endless to explore. Ingredients and baking techniques differentiate the textures the best. While chewy cookies are all about a moist, soft, and bendy consistency, crispy cookies are all firm, dry, and snap. Chewy cookies often contain more fat (butter), moisture (egg, brown sugar, corn syrup). Crispy cookies include more white sugar, less butter, and less moisture. Whether it is crispy or chewy, certain mistakes should always be avoided while baking cookies. Here’s a list of the top crispy chewy cookie mistakes to avoid.
Chewy Cookies: Top 5 Mistakes To Avoid
Overmixing the dough: Whether crispy or chewy, overmixing is laways a no. It causes excess gluten development, which leads to a tough, dense cookie. For best results, make sure the ingredients are mixed until just combined.
Not chilling the dough: For a soft, chewy cookie, spreading of the dough is not recommended. A warm dough spreads quickly in the oven and makes thin, crispy cookies. A chilled dough contains the spreading and ensures thicker, chewier cookies.
Using cold butter: Cold butter always refuses to emulsify properly with sugar, which leads to an uneven, lumpy cookie dough that doesn’t rise properly in the oven. Butter should be at room temperature for a soft, chewy texture.
Over-creaming butter and sugar: Over-creaming the butter and sugar incorporates excess air into the cookie dough and makes the cookies collapse. For the best results, cream just until fluffy.
Overbaking cookies: Allowing the cookies to overbake strips moisture from them. Remove them when edges are set, but the centers still look slightly soft to achieve the perfect chewy texture.
Crispy Cookies: Top 5 Mistakes To Avoid
For crispy cookies, the focus is always on reducing moisture and increasing spread. Here are a few mistakes to avoid to achieve the desired texture.
Adding excess flour: Excess flour always leads to tough, cake-like, or dry cookies instead of crispy ones. For accuracy, it is therefore best to use a kitchen scale to measure flour.
Adding brown sugar: Sugar content has a lot to do with the crispiness of the cookies. Brown sugar adds moisture and, therefore, is not ideal for crispy cookies. White sugar is ideal for crispiness. Make sure only white sugar is used for crispy cookies.
Using too many eggs: To achieve the crispy texture, avoid adding too many eggs. It often leads to a soggy, cakey, or gummy texture instead due to high moisture content.
Overmixing the Dough: Overmixing the cookie dough after adding the flour is not recommended, as it often develops the gluten. It is a protein that can lead to a hard or rubbery-textured cookie. Overmixing also incorporates excess air, which leads to tough cookies. It is ideal to mix the dry ingredients well into the wet mixture until just combined for a perfect cookie.
Chilling the dough: To achieve a good spread, skip chilling the dough. When the dough is warm or at room temperature, it spreads more in the oven. This leads to thin, crispy cookies.
5 General Mistakes To Avoid While Baking Cookies
Overcrowding The Pan While baking cookies, it is not ideal to overcrowd the pan. This often results in the cookies being too close to each other and very little room to rise and spread out. This often leads to overcooked cookies with burnt edges.
Softening The Butter Too Much Using oversoftened butter often ruins the recipe. The concept of ‘room temperature’ butter varies widely across the globe. In Western recipes, it refers to 15-22°C, while in India, it means anything between 22°C to 40°C in summer. Now, if the room temperature butter is used in cookie dough in India, the ultra-softened butter will not cream properly with sugar. That means the dough won’t hold its shape and will spread out too much.
Use Fresh Leavening Agent Over time, the leavening agents lose potency and fail to produce enough gas to lift the cookie dough. Expired leaveners (baking powder, baking soda) often lead to tough cookies due to poor rise of the batter. An insufficient amount of leavening agent also fails to aerate the dough properly. Therefore, it is recommended to check the status and quantity of leaveners for the best results.
Not Preheating the oven Preheating the oven is non-negotiable for baking a batch of perfect cookies. This method ensures that the oven reaches the correct temperature before the actual baking starts. It also ensures even cooking and proper rising to achieve the desired texture. Baking the cookies before the oven reaches the correct temperature often leads to uneven baking and a poor, soggy texture.
Low Oven Temperature Low oven temperature always ruins the cookie recipe. It causes cookies to spread more because the fat melts and the dough flattens before the edges are set. A correct temperature (180 °C) always sets the edges fast and therefore contains the spreading. To make sure the oven temperature is right, get an oven thermometer and use it before the baking starts.
Conclusion:
While enjoying cookies is all about feeling a sense of joy, baking cookies is all about precision. Whether a batch of crispy cookies or a batch of chewy ones, make sure all the rules are followed. Cause that is the only way to achieve perfection.