Engineering the perfect cookie: You can control the diameter and thickness of your favorite chocolate chip cookies by changing the temperature of the butter and the amount of flour in the dough. Morgan Walker/NPR hide caption toggle caption Morgan Walker/NPR The Salt Cookie-Baking Chemistry: How To Engineer Your Perfect Sweet Treat December 3, 2013 A cookie in the oven almost looks like a monster coming alive. It bulges out, triples in size and then stiffens into a crisp biscuit. So how does an oven turn raw dough into a delight? A new animation explains the chemistry behind great baking so you, too, can unleash your inner mad scientist in the kitchen.