Bake the cookies at 450 degrees for about 6 to 8 minutes — watch carefully. Pull them when they are just starting to brown. If you’re not having luck with 450, try doing the same thing at 400. If you have a convection oven, try baking at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.
Bake until the cookies are lightly browned and no longer wet in the center, 6 to 8 minutes; if baking more than one pan at a time, switch pan positions halfway through baking. (Take the cookies out of the oven 1 or 2 minutes before the cookies are cooked, as they will continue to cook on the baking pans.)
350° is the standard temp for a cookie, and it’s a great one. Your cookies will bake evenly and the outside will be done at the same time as the inside. Baking at 325° also results in an evenly baked cookie, but the slower cooking will help yield a chewier cookie.
If you’re feeling particularly bold, give 400 degrees Fahrenheit a go. This temperature will yield a puffier cookie with a crunchy exterior and delightfully soft center.
Answer: If your baking times are significantly shorter or longer than those called for in a recipe, there may be a calibration issue with your oven’s thermostat. This is a very common problem, and almost all ovens – even those that give the impression of precision through digital temperature displays, etc.
Keeping them on the sheet too long after baking can cause them to get hard or stick to the sheet. Cookies are done when they are firmly set and lightly browned. When you touch them lightly with your finger, almost no imprint will remain.
Problem #4: Pale and soft cookies
They were probably baked from a good consistency dough but ended up a bit under baked and raw on the inside. Either the oven temperature is too low or they were taken out too soon. When baking always keep an eye on your cookies and take them out when they’re golden.
Bake the cookies at 450 degrees for about 6 to 8 minutes — watch carefully. Pull them when they are just starting to brown. If you’re not having luck with 450, try doing the same thing at 400. If you have a convection oven, try baking at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.
Cookies should (almost) always be baked on the middle rack of the oven. The middle rack offers the most even heat and air circulation which helps cookies bake consistently.
9 Tips to Remember
- Use Real Butter and Keep It Cool. The low melting point of butter may be what makes your cookies flat.
- Use Shortening.
- Chill Dough Twice.
- Use Parchment Paper or a Silicone Liner.
- Measure Precisely.
- Use Fresh Baking Soda.
- Use Optional Add-Ins.
- Buy an Oven Thermometer.
A lot of cookie recipes use 350°F as the preferred temperature, but if you lower it to 325°F, your cookies will cook a little slower and retain more moisture. Shorten Your Baking Time Another way to keep your cookies chewy and tender is to try baking them for less time.
A low temperature and longer baking time yields crisper, thinner cookies; a higher temperature and shorter baking time makes softer, thicker cookies.
Cookie Dough Baking Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 – 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cover your baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.
- Drop cookies on the baking sheet.
- Gently tap the cookie down to get a good spread and circular shape.
- Allow 2” between each cookie in order to avoid them spreading into each other.
Using parchment paper to bake cookies can save time and energy. Unbaked cookies are placed directly onto the parchment paper, eliminating the need to grease the cookie sheet. While a batch of cookies is baking, portion out the remaining cookie dough onto sheets of parchment paper.
I am going out on a limb against popular opinions by saying, YES, it’s okay to place your under baked or underdone cookies back into the oven for a second bake.
They go from soft to hard because they start to dry out, and it begins as soon as you pull them from the oven. (Yikes.) Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying.
Which is the superior cookie, chewy or crunchy? Turns out, America has a definitive answer! According to National Today, 35 percent of you like crunchy cookies, but a whopping 65 percent of you LOVE your cookies chewy! (And honestly, is there anything better than breaking into a little ball of soft, gooey goodness?
Undercooked cookies are still edible, don’t toss them! Some people prefer chocolate chip cookies underdone, but you can’t know for sure that the egg has fully cooked (although that wouldn’t bother me one bit unless the source was shaky).
If you mix (or roll out) cookie dough too much, you’ll add excess air to the dough, causing it to rise and then fall flat in the oven. Overmixing the dough can also lead to excess gluten development, resulting in dense cookies.
While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.
Keep those cookies crisp by storing them in an airtight container. Some people toss a piece of bread in with the cookies to help absorb any excess moisture. You could also re-crisp them by baking on a wire rack in a 300 degree F oven for a few minutes.
Because the higher temperature causes the cookies to firm faster (aka set faster) and this prevents spreading. Cookies baked at 375 degrees F will have a thicker, chewier bottom.
“When you bake at a lower temperature, you will get that perfect cookie with a soft center and crisp exterior,” she adds. Just make sure you increase baking time by a couple of minutes or you will end up with gooey underbaked cookies.
If you prefer to bake two sheets, space racks so oven is divided into thirds and switch cookie sheets top to bottom and back to front halfway through baking. Preheat oven 10 to 15 minutes before baking the first sheet or pan of cookies. Check oven temperature with an oven thermometer.
Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder.
What is the bottom shelf of the oven for?
Gas ovens that contain the heating unit in the bottom may offer the space as a broiling drawer. This is often a very narrow space that functions as a broiler and fits shallow baking sheets, dishes, or pans. It’s ideal for browning the tops of casseroles, caramelizing chicken skin, or even roasting vegetables.
Carbon dioxide gas and water vapor form the bubbles which make cookies rise. Rising doesn’t just make cookies taller. It also opens up space to keep the cookie from becoming too dense. Salt slows down the decomposition of baking soda, so the bubbles don’t get too big.
Water vapor escaping from the dough in combination with the carbon dioxide released by our baking soda is ultimately what makes our cookies light and airy.
When added to cake, cookie and shortbread recipes, cornstarch helps create a crumbly and tender dessert-like texture. Commercially, cornstarch is often used as an anti-caking agent.
Which One Should I Use in Cookies? Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren’t as flavorful.
Shortening is 100% fat, containing no water. That means no steam is created during baking which effectively reduces gluten production, so shortening cookies tend to be softer and more tender. Also, shortening has a higher melting point than butter, resulting in taller cookies.
Cookie chemistry: We’re taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that’s soft and chewy all the way through.
The two things that make a perfect chocolate chip cookie are lots of quality semi sweet chocolate chips (or chunks if you prefer) and thoroughly creaming your sugars and butter without overworking your flour.
Adding melted butter to your recipe will change your cookies’ and cakes’ structure, density, and texture: Adding melted butter instead of the traditional softened butter will result in a chewier cookie. Softened butter in cookie dough will give you a more cake-like cookie.
1. Granulated sugar. Using granulated white sugar will result in a flatter, crispier and lighter-colored cookie. Granulated sugar is hygroscopic, so it attracts and absorbs the liquid in the dough.
Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you’re more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.
Chilling cookie dough controls spread.
Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.
Lining a baking sheet when making cookies: Not only will the parchment help cookies bake more evenly, the non-stick quality also helps prevent them from cracking or breaking when lifting them off the sheet. Decorating home-baked goods: Parchment paper makes the perfect wrapper for baked goods.
When should you not use parchment paper?
When Not to Use Parchment Paper. Parchment paper is not designed for high heat cooking. Avoid using it in your oven or on the grill if temperature will exceed 400 degrees, says Michelle Weaver, chef at Charleston Grill in South Carolina, as there’s a chance it could catch fire.
Which side of parchment paper goes up?
There is no right or wrong side to parchment paper, so either side can be used. For the best baking results, use a fresh sheet of parchment paper for each pan of cookies.
Should parchment paper be greased?
Parchment paper is already non-stick, so there’s generally no need to grease your parchment paper. And if you’re baking cookies, greasing the parchment paper will likely cause your cookies to overspread and become greasy, so definitely skip the grease.
You can also poke the side with your finger – if the edge doesn’t fall inwards they’re done, if it leaves a noticeable indentation then they need more time. What is this? My candy corn chocolate cookies have no more wetness look to them, and the edges are a bit dryer. That’s how you know they’re done.
Yes! You can absolutely soften hard or stale cookies. Simply place the cookies in an airtight container, throw a slice of white bread in there with them, and then close the lid overnight. The cookies will absorb the moisture from the bread and you’ll wake up to a deliciously soft dessert.
Pastry Flour: An unbleached flour made from soft wheat, with protein levels somewhere between cake flour and all-purpose flour (8 to 9 percent). Pastry flour strikes the ideal balance between flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and many cookies.
For softer, chewier cookies, you will want to add much less granulated sugar, slightly more brown sugar, and a fair bit less butter. For cakey cookies, you will often be including even less butter and sugar.
The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here’s a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.
Eating raw cookie dough, bread batter or cake and brownie mixes is a recipe for disaster, Ruck said. Both raw eggs and flour can contain bacteria, viruses and parasites that can make anyone — especially young children and older adults — sick.
However, it may look a bit puffy or soft in the center, too. This is normal and simply means that the cookie may continue baking on the sheet and rack once removed from the oven. Taking cookies out of the oven at this stage will make them softer and chewier. Whereas, overcooking can create brittleness.
Salmonella was not detected in hard cookies at the end of baking (as determined by enrichment), whereas in soft cookies, 0.6 log CFU/g Salmonella was present at the end of baking and cooling.
Adding eggs, one at a time
They should be added one at a time, each one thoroughly beaten in before the next is added, to allow the creamed butter/sugar mixture to most effectively retain its trapped air. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so all of the butter/sugar mixture is incorporated.
Most cookies have top crusts that remain relatively soft and flexible as the cookies set during baking. However, if the top surface dries out before the cookie is finished spreading and rising, it hardens, cracks, and pulls apart, producing an attractive crinkly, cracked exterior.
Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar for your cookie dough until they are light and fluffy. This should take about 5 minutes on a medium/high speed. Scrape down the bowl at least once about half way through the mixture.
9 Tips to Remember
- Use Real Butter and Keep It Cool. The low melting point of butter may be what makes your cookies flat.
- Use Shortening.
- Chill Dough Twice.
- Use Parchment Paper or a Silicone Liner.
- Measure Precisely.
- Use Fresh Baking Soda.
- Use Optional Add-Ins.
- Buy an Oven Thermometer.
Mistake: When cookies turn out flat, the bad guy is often butter that is too soft or even melted. This makes cookies spread. The other culprit is too little flour—don’t hold back and make sure you master measuring. Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets.
Sugars, like fats liquefy in the oven. White sugar will make your cookies crispier while brown sugar contains more moisture and will result in a softer and more chewy cookie. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes call for both sugars.
Baked cookies should not be refrigerated.
Can I leave sugar cookies out overnight? You can leave your sugar cookies out overnight to dry. In fact, it’s recommended that you leave your iced sugar cookies out overnight to fully set.
Dry Cookies
- Make sure cookies cool completely before storing.
- Store them at room temperature in an air-tight container, like Tupperware.
- Store different flavors separately.
- If you have limited Tupperware containers, place each flavor in its own freezer bag and then place those bags in the container.
Bake the cookies at 450 degrees for about 6 to 8 minutes — watch carefully. Pull them when they are just starting to brown. If you’re not having luck with 450, try doing the same thing at 400. If you have a convection oven, try baking at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.
350° is the standard temp for a cookie, and it’s a great one. Your cookies will bake evenly and the outside will be done at the same time as the inside. Baking at 325° also results in an evenly baked cookie, but the slower cooking will help yield a chewier cookie.
Bake at 375 degrees F until golden and tender, 12 to 15 minutes. For crispy-cakey cookies: Bake the cookies at 425 degrees F until golden and crunchy on the outside, 8 to 10 minutes.