What Makes Things Chewy?
I like a chewy bread and chewy cookies. I have been trying to make chewy cookies based on Alton Brown's Chewy cookie recipe but if I alter the ingredients just a bit, more sugar, more butter, etc I always seem to loose the chewy part. He uses bread flour which adds more gluten and basically he melts the butter instead of the the usual creaming method. He claims that bread flour will absorb more liquid from the melted butter making more gluten.
I know gluten is key here even in bread, but the details still seem to allude me. Why is it that kneading bread a long time is a good thing and making cookies is a bad thing if the end goal is chewiness from gluten?
I have read a lot of posted all over the Internet for the secret to chewiness but they seem all over the map. Anything from adding sour cream, honey, corn syrup, brown sugar to more water, less water, more kneading, no kneading.
Can anyone explain or straighten this out for me?