I'm with Lynnie!!

When I make chocolate chip cookies I use shortening instead of butter. Makes them soft. Don't like hard cookies.

I sat in on an Anna Olson demonstration at the Plowing Match recently and her explanation of the difference between BP and BS was that although they are both used as a rising agent BS reacts immediately upon meeting with the liquid ingredients and BP has a more prolonged reaction time and therefore is needed in recipes with longer baking times. I know this doesn't answer the softer cookie question but it was information that I found interesting :-)

Banking powder will give you a softer and fatter cookie.

Shortening makes cookies softer, doesn't take too much either.

Baking powder makes the cookies softer. My sugar cookie recipe called for both, and the cookies were soft, not crispy like I wanted. Next time I left out the BP and had nice crisp sugar cookies and I never made them any other way again.I wasn't smart enough to do that on my own, my Mom told me!LOL

I always use self rising flour that way I don't have that baking soda taste to my cookies. I also always take my cookies out a few minutes sooner than the recipe calls for since my husband likes soft cookies. Especially peanut butter cookies..:)

My mom always used to put more flour in to make a softer, higher cookie.

I have no answer for you, but I learned by accident ( lost count, I can be such a dufus...), that if you add an extra egg to the recipe, it makes most cookies more cake like. I tried it in peanut butter cookies, and found to my surprise that it made them chewy instead of crumbly. I use an extra egg in brownies also, even if I use a mix. The brownies are more cake like, and still real moist.

I read somewhere (Woman's Day) adding instant pudding to the cookie dough and a quarter cup of oil made a softer cookie, plumper, too, so I have always done that since. Love the results. A number of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt group that continued on into Pony Club on the BOM site of QB could tell you how much they loved my Chocolate Cowboy Cookies last Christmas. Flattery might even get them a repeat this year! I believe I sent five kinds of cookies out, and that one was the most popular one.

My DGM always folded in a teaspoon of baking soda and a teaspoon of vinegar into her mix just before putting the cookies or cake into the oven to make it rise faster and better.