The Bold Addition That Turns Chocolate Chip Cookies Into A Gourmet Treat (Just A Pinch Of It!)

Chocolate chip cookies are magic. Most of us grow up guzzling the store-bought kind, before graduating — often while still kids — to baking our own. No matter how imperfectly they turn out, they always put a smile on our faces. As we get older, we discover there are all sorts of ways to play around with the texture, but when it comes to giving your chocolate chips a gourmet twist, all you need is a tiny pinch of MSG. "I've never seen people rave so much about anything I've made," enthused one Redditor, who had added it to their latest batch. But what is MSG, and how can it make a homemade sweet treat taste gourmet? Let's take a closer look.

MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is a white powder that, from a distance, looks like salt or sugar. It has no real smell, but when added to dishes such as soups, broths or sauces, it turns up the flavor all the way to 11. Chemically, it's a blend of L-glutamic acid (found naturally in foods like mushrooms or tomatoes) and sodium, and was first developed in 1908 by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, who extracted glutamic acid crystals from his wife's dried seaweed broth. He dubbed the deeply savory tasting result "umami," a play on "umai," the Japanese word for "delicious." Today, industrially fermented sugar cane, or starch is used to produce the MSG that enhances the flavor of all kinds of foods — including chocolate chip cookies.

A little MSG goes a long way when boosting the flavor of chocolate cookies. Between a quarter and a half-teaspoon added to your usual batch of dough is all that's needed, bear in mind you're looking to enhance, not overwhelm the taste. Science is still getting to grips with exactly what chemical wizardry happens when you combine MSG with chocolate, but we know the sprinkling, whether you do it before or after cooking, adds a deeper richness to sweet treats (similar to a sprinkling of sea salt), giving the end result a delicious, gourmet flourish.

Although MSG and salt don't have exactly the same taste profile, just like most dried and fresh herbs, they can be used interchangeably. Because MSG has around a third less sodium, it can even help people reduce their intake without compromising their dishes, working its umami magic in savory and sweet recipes (cheesecake is especially popular). At a push, you can also get a similar umami flavor by adding soy sauce into your cookie dough. We've also got a chocolate chip cookie upgrade using one bold Japanese ingredient – miso.