Most of the residual water in a cookie is held by the hot saturated
sucrose syrup when sugar-snap cookies are baked (Chieh,
2006). During cooling, this syrup becomes super-saturated,
resulting in stabilizing the water within the cookie. During the
first several days of storage after baking, the moisture inside cookie
matrix continues to equilibrate with sugar crystallization at the
cookie surface and retrogradation of gelatinized starch in cookie
matrix (Youngquist & Brabbs, 1982). Exposure to an environment of
relatively higher humidity compared to that inside a cookie could
induce the transfer of moisture toward the cookie. The absorbed
moisture into the cookie could be used for the crystallization of
sugar or the retrogradation of gelatinized starch inside the cookie
(Pareyt & Delcour, 2008). In most cases, however, the increase in
moisture content of cookies during storage could deteriorate the
quality because it may facilitate sugar crystallization and starch
retrogradation (Youngquist & Brabbs, 1982).
Little or no changes in moisture content