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ByKalea Martin/
If you do a lot of baking, you know that any slight variation to the recipe can easily alter the texture and taste. Whether it be adding mayonnaise to make your cake extra moist, or aerating the flour before you add it to your batter, there are plenty of ways to transform your baked goods for the better. For cookies, it's not just the ingredients but also the time it spends in the oven that can make a big difference.
According to Cook's Illustrated, the key to achieving a chewy texture in your cookies is simply to take them out a bit earlier than you normally would. Don't bother timing it down to the minute, just pull them out when the edges on the cookies are lightly browned but not fully golden and the crevices are still slightly moist. If you can't tell based on the appearance alone, take a spatula and gently lift the cookie. If the cookie is almost too droopy to pick up, that's when you'll know they're the perfect amount of underbaked.
There's such a thing as too underbaked
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Slightly underbaked cookies yield chewier results, but you definitely don't want to end up with raw cookie dough either. To prevent this from happening, Southern Living recommends letting your cookies cool right on the baking pan instead of on a separate cooling rack. Doing so for one to two minutes will allow the slightly underbaked cookies to firm up from the residual heat of the hot pan.
If your cookies have cooled all the way down and they're still more on the raw side, they'll have to go back in the oven. As per Food52's instructions, preheat your oven to about 300 or 325 degrees Fahrenheit, then add the cookies in for 10 to 15 minutes at most, depending on how underbaked they were to begin with. The lower than normal baking temperature will suck out additional moisture and heat it just enough so the dough cooks through but still remains chewy.
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