The Secret Ingredient for Rich, Chewy, Extra Crinkly Crinkle Cookies

Baking Christmas cookies is a magical way to celebrate the holiday season. Whether you're perfecting classic sugar cookies, rolling out cute gingerbread men or experimenting with new flavors, Christmas cookies bring loved ones together in the sweetest way.

One of my favorite cookies to make is soft, chewy crinkle cookie. These cookies are known for their dramatic crackled appearance. The dough is typically made with flour, sugar, eggs, butter, and baking soda and baking powder, which helps give the treat rise. The most common crinkle cookies are chocolate, but over the years bakers have played around with this classic cookie and you can find crinkle cookie recipes in a range of flavors, including strawberry, lemon, gingerbread and more.

Once you make the dough, you roll it into balls and generously coat each dough ball in powdered sugar. As the cookies bake, they spread and crack, revealing the contrasting, darker dough beneath the snowy powdered sugar exterior. This creates the beautiful “crinkle” effect that I love so much about these cookies. This treat is slightly crisp on the outside but soft and fudgy inside, which is the perfect texture for a cookie, in my opinion.

These cookies are great for cookie platters or gift boxes because they're delicious and eye-catching, but I'm always looking for ways to make my cookies better. As I was scrolling social media, I might have found just that. I spied an amazing-looking crinkle cookie on the Cook’s Illustrated Instagram feed. The magazine, a trusted culinary source featuring rigorously tested recipes, cooking tips and reviews of kitchen tools, is known for its science-based approach to cooking. If anyone can upgrade this classic cookie it's them. I can't wait to try this version at home.

Related: We Baked Cookies With 10 Different All-Purpose Flours and the Winner Won By a Landslide

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Why You Should Use Three Sugars to Make Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

According to the test kitchen experts at Cook's Illustrated, the key to the best-ever chocolate crinkle cookies is to use three different kinds of sugar. Three types of sugar for one cookie sounds oh-so-sweet! The brown sugar is mixed into the dough, giving this cookie a rich flavor and chewy texture and the cookie dough balls are rolled in granulated sugar and then powdered sugar to encourage the cookies to crack.

The recipe also includes some espresso powder to bump up the flavor of the chocolate and baking soda and baking powder to make sure the cookie is light and fluffy with lots of rise.

How to Make Crinkle Cookies Extra Crinkly

You can find the full Cook's Illustrated recipe in the Instagram caption, but to secret to the crinkles comes down the final sugar-coating step. You'll place the granulated sugar and powdered sugar in separate shallow dishes. Next, take two tablespoons of dough and roll it into a ball.

Drop the dough ball in the granulated sugar and roll to coat. Move it to the powdered sugar and roll to coat evenly in the powdery stuff. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 325° until the cookies are puffed and beautifully cracked.

But how does this two-part sugar situation work? Granulated sugar plays a key role in creating the signature cracks in crinkle cookies because it creates a slightly hardened crust on the surface of the cookie. When the cookies bake, the leavening agents (baking powder or baking soda) cause the cookies to expand and rise. This expansion forces the crust (made by the granulated sugar) to crack.

The granulated sugar combined with the powdered sugar is the perfect combo because the powdered sugar amplifies the cracked effect and gives your cookies more of that crinkled appearance that they're so well-known for.

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