While air helps cakes, making them less dense and more fluffy, too much air in a cookie can be problematic: the air bubbles will expand in the oven and will cause your cookies to spread and lose their shape.
Air in cookie dough can also lead to bubbles that might look like lumps in a baked cookie, like shortbread and cut-out sugar cookies. When butter melts as the cookies bake, the cookies will spread, especially if the structure and outer edges of the cookies haven't dried and set yet. Too much butter will promote spread and the loss of shape. Too much sugar is also problematic in most cookies recipes and actually promotes spread when the sugar absorbs moisture and liquifies, causing cookies to thin out in the oven.
Remember that when we refer to "too much" of an ingredient, we are finding that the recipe's ingredient ratios are off or unbalanced, and that there's too much butter or sugar relative to the flour, for example. I see this a lot: chocolate chip cookies that spread out and become thin and crispy as they bake. More often than not, it's a sign there isn't enough flour in the recipe as compared to the amount of butter, sugar, and eggs.
Flour is an important ingredient that binds all the other ingredients together. It absorbs moisture and gives baked goods structure. Not enough flour, compared to the butter and sugar, means your cookies will spread out and may even merge into one if there isn't enough space between them! In some recipes, baking soda will increase the pH of the cookie dough, so much so that it might actually increase cookie spread by weakening the gluten network that helps hold the cookie dough together.
You know that golden brown color all cookie-lovers crave? When this happens, the plethora of sugar in your dough results in a more even, beautiful browning when baked. Reducing excess moisture and cooling down the fat in your dough also helps improve the texture of your finished cookies. You can simultaneously perfect your mise en place and get your ducks in a row before moving on with the recipe. Line your cookie sheet, get your cooling rack ready and get a head start on cleaning dishes you dirtied when mixing the dough.
Click here to cancel reply. Remember me. For scooped cookies like oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies, I like to chill the dough overnight. The texture is improved, the cold dough helps keep my cookies thicker as they bake, and the caramel notes in the cookies are enhanced.
I definitely recommend a hour chill for many scooped cookie recipes. In the end, if you're craving a freshly—baked chocolate chip cookie now, just go for it and break all the recommendations. Kitchen Geekery is written by Janice Lawandi. Janice is a PhD-chemist-turned-baker, which is why she loves to use science to understand and solve problems in the kitchen. She's currently working as a recipe tester and writer in Montreal, QC.
Save Save. You will most probably want to add a couple minutes to the bake time. So, it can depend on what you are going for. I monitor the look of them more than the clock in some cases, I guess. Hi, Thank you so much for the insight! I also am curious about the science of the enzymes. I am msking spritz cookies and an pressed for time, i would like to make dough ahead of time, of course the recipe states need t to refrigerate dough.
Is this only because the dough needs to be soft for the press, or for other reasons such as the eggs and flour enzymes..
Hi Rita, Interesting question! Another reason why doughs that you press may be chilled is to help stabilize the dough because if the dough is too warm, you may experience the fat being pressed out of the dough from the mechanical force of the cookie press on the dough.
Completely confused as to why when I chill the cookie dough they spread and when I cook them right away they puff up. Ahead, two baking experts explain why this simple step makes a big, delicious impact in most recipes—plus, they share examples of when you should skip this step entirely. Flour contains naturally-occurring enzymes, which break down as the dough chills, leading to increased browning. The sugar in the dough absorbs the moisture from the flour, causing the cookie to brown and caramelize.
This will prevent the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies. When you have a craving for cookies, waiting an additional 30 minutes for the dough to chill may not seem worthwhile, but our experts say it's a step that's entirely worth adding to your baking routine. In terms of texture, chilled cookie dough produces a more evenly golden-brown cookie with a crisper edge and chewier center," says Haught Brown.
As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
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