Look No Further Than Agave Syrup For Sweet And Chewy Cookies

If you're a lover of soft and chewy cookies, you're probably always looking for the exact secret ingredient to nail the perfect textural sweet spot, and agave syrup might be what you're looking for. Tinkering with lots of cookie recipes can be delicious but also be exhausting because, like so many baked goods, changing just one ingredient or one ratio can radically alter the finished result. Getting chewy cookies involves playing around a lot with moisture, because more liquid generally means a softer cookie. This gives you a lot, probably too many, options to choose from, with butter, oil, honey, brown sugar and more all being potential sources of chew. So we reached out to an expert: Jerrelle Guy, the author of "Black Girl Baking," which is a James Beard Award-nominated cookbook, and the creator of The Dinner Ritual, a newsletter exploring the intersection of cooking and spirituality. She told us that if you want chewy cookies, you want agave syrup.

Guy tells us, "Agave adds a delicate flavor and sweetness and makes cookies softer and sometimes a little chewy." She explains that alternatives like molasses can also work but will add a bolder flavor and make cookies more dense, while brown sugar "contributes flavor, structure, a little moisture and a slight chew." Compared to those, Guy says, "Agave syrup works great if you're trying to bake cookies that have a softer texture." And the flavor of agave syrup will add more sweetness than other alternatives like butter and vegetable oil.

There are a few side effects that agave syrup can have on your cookies, which Guy warns us to look out for. She says, "On the downside, using it can make cookies brown faster in the oven, spread more as they bake, and it can throw off the texture of crisp cookies by adding too much extra moisture." You can often tell this by comparing how thin agave is to other sources of sweetness and moisture in your cookies. As an example Guy explains, "compared to honey, it's thinner and less sticky, so your dough could spread more." So while agave is great for adding some chew to cookies, it's a pretty runny ingredient, so it's best tested with a light hand at first.

And there are a lot of great cookies to try agave syrup with. Guy recommends, "Snickerdoodles, spice cookies, or anything oatmeal-based will work really well with agave. It stirs in easily and keeps the centers soft and moist." She also tells us that agave is a great vegan alternative for honey. Guy does warn, however, that some recipes aren't ideal for agave, telling us, "just skip it when you're making cookies that have an extra crunchy texture, like biscotti, or ones that require sharp edges like cut-out sugar cookies." That still leaves you with plenty of great cookie recipes to try your agave syrup with.