Why Are People Putting *This* In Their Chocolate Chip Cookies? (2025)

FAQs

Do people put MSG in cookies? ›

In Desserts

Adding MSG along with some flaky sea salt [to your regular cookie dough recipe] gives your taste buds sweet, salty, and umami all at once,” Koetke observes.

The recipe for The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies claims that the addition of a small amount of water, “creates steam as [the cookie] bakes, working with the baking soda to puff the cookies up.” Others claim mixing warm water with baking soda helps remove clumps and disperses it with the other ingredients in the recipe.

The salt triggers certain taste bud receptors that can appreciate the sweetness of the chocolate chips, adding a whole new world of flavor in every bite.

Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly. You should use unsalted butter to control the salt content, but if you only have salted on hand, reduce the amount of added salt accordingly.

In many countries MSG goes by the name “China salt”. Beside its flavour enhancing effects, MSG has been associated with various forms of toxicity (Figure 1(Fig. 1)). MSG has been linked with obesity, metabolic disorders, Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, neurotoxic effects and detrimental effects on the reproductive organs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified MSG as a food ingredient that's generally recognized as safe.

Eggs promote puffiness and spreading in cookies, while also holding the cookie together during baking. The height and texture of the final product is determined by how much egg is incorporated into the batter. Substituting ingredients can make or break a recipe.

Every cookie needs that bit of salt, or else the cookie's nuanced flavors will get lost.

Butter gives flavor, tenderness and flaky layers to baked goods. It can also bring a bit of structure and rise. For instance, a chocolate chip cookie dough incorporates butter and sugar to incorporate air into the final result.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

What makes cookies cakey vs chewy? ›

Sugar dissolved in baking forms a syrup as the dough heats up. Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

If you want to use MSG instead of salt in baking your results will depend on what you are baking. The S im MSG stands for sodium so you can switch them. However MSG isn't just salty, it ads a savoury element to food. So if you are baking something sweet you may not like the results.

“We are just beginning to understand how MSG contributes to overall flavor complexity in sweet applications,” he said. In his experience, adding MSG to chocolate cake and brownies at fairly low levels adds “a characteristic savory note that makes the desserts taste richer with an increase in overall depth of flavor.”

Many companies that make frozen dinners add MSG to their products to improve the savory flavor of the meal ( 15 ). Other frozen products that often contain MSG include frozen pizzas, mac and cheese, and frozen breakfast meals.

By using MSG as a partial substitute for regular table salt, it's possible to reduce the sodium content and improve the flavor. It has two-thirds less sodium than regular table salt - and you only need a small amount to elevate the overall flavor. “MSG has to be used judiciously or your dish will get out of balance.