Most cookie dough spreads while baking as the fat melts because the formula is designed for this to happen. However, some recipes don’t spread, so they require that you flatten the dough before baking. Otherwise, you will have cookies that are puffy and unevenly cooked.
And there are no baking police: If your recipe tells you to flatten your cookies before baking, you just go ahead and do that however you want. So long as they end up evenly flat, that is; squashing cookies haphazardly under your palm means they may bake and brown unevenly.
If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here’s what’s happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.
You changed the recipe
Or in some cases, the cookie recipe will require you to flatten the cookies before baking if they haven’t been designed to spread naturally. If you reduce the amount of butter or oil in a recipe, your cookies won’t spread as much. If you add too much flour, your cookies won’t spread as much.
Rolling the dough creates an easier reference of size. If a recipe calls for flattening with a sugar coated glass or fork, I’ll still roll them first to ensure that the pressed cookies are the same size. Rolling the dough into equal size balls also gives each cookie the same surface area.
Q: Why are my cookies so puffy and cakey? Whipping too much air into the dough. That fluffy texture you want in a cake results from beating a lot of air into the room temperature butter and sugar, and it does the same for cookies. So don’t overdo it when you’re creaming together the butter and sugar.
How to Fix Cakey Cookies
- Don’t Chill Your Cookies.
- Use Melted Butter instead of Room Temperature Butter.
- Use Less Flour.
- Don’t Beat the Butter and Sugar Too Much.
- Add Baking Soda.
- Decrease Baking Powder.
- Drop the Pan on the Counter a Few Times after Baking.
- Decrease the Amount of Eggs.
If you want a flatter cookie, eliminate 1 egg and cut back the flour to 2 cups. If you like a really crunchy cookie, add another egg white because it helps to dry out baked goods. If you prefer a moist and chewy cookie, eliminate one egg white and add 2 TBSP of milk.
Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn’t enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour.
In most cookie recipes, you are instructed to cream room-temperature butter and sugar together. This is because mixing the butter and sugar granules creates air pockets in the dough, which results in puffier cookies.
Peanut Butter
It is more than just decoration. Peanut butter cookie dough is usually rolled into balls. Also, it is dense and won’t spread like other cookie dough recipes. Therefore, a fork is the standard tool used to flatten the dough into the traditional round cookie shape, helping it bake more evenly.
Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets. Keep it cool to start with. How to Fix it: If too-soft butter was the culprit, try refrigerating cookie dough for 1 to 2 hours before baking. If too-little flour was the issue, try adding an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour to the dough.
The most common reason why your cookies don’t spread is that you’ve added too much flour. Adding more dry ingredients than the recipe calls for can result in a dough that is too stiff. Moisture and fat in the dough are soaked up by the excessive amount of flour which takes away its ability to spread.
HOW TO SCOOP COOKIE DOUGH TO MAKE THE PERFECT COOKIE. STEP 1: I use a 1 Tablespoon cookie scoop but if you don’t have a cookie scoop you can also use a 1 Tablespoon measuring spoon.
It’s also notable that using too much flour can cause cookies to be puffy. You might have used a bit more flour than you should have, and this could have contributed to the overall puffiness. Sometimes little errors such as not measuring out a cup properly will make the difference.
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.
Generally for 1 or 2-inch-deep pans, you will fill them 1/2 full of batter. For pans that are 3 or 4-inch-deep, the batter needs to be about 2/3 full.
The most common cause is using a different flour than usual, such as cake flour, and measuring flour with too heavy a hand. Using larger eggs than called for can make cookies cakey, as will the addition of milk or more milk or other liquids than specified.
How to Make Crispy 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.
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.
If you’re in the middle of baking a batch and the cookies still aren’t spreading, remove them from the oven, and use a spoon to slightly flatten them out before returning them to the oven.
Chilling cookie dough
- Chilling cookie dough for just 30 minutes makes a big difference. The cookies pictured above are the same size, weight-wise.
- The longer you chill cookie dough, the smaller the changes become.
- Over time, chilling cookie dough produces cookies with darker color and more pronounced flavor.
Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they’re in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
Most cookies are baked at a fairly high temperature for a short time. Why would you double-pan a batch of cookies? To prevent burning the bottoms of the cookies.
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.
Sugar is solid at room temperature, but it liquefies when heated. If you’re heavy-handed when measuring, that extra sugar means extra liquid and more spread when the cookies bake up in the oven. Using too little flour could lead to flat cookies, too.
Not Enough Flour
If your cookies are flat, brown, crispy, and possibly even a bit lacy around the edges, that means you need to add flour to your dough for the next batch. Our cookies were brittle and greasy and cooked much faster than the other dough balls on the sheet.
Excess Sugar and Fat
Measuring is key in baking. If your cookie contains excess sugar or fat, it will spread while baking. If your first batch of cookies spreads, try adding a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken the remaining dough.
Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The longer you chill the dough, the more flavor will develop. The flour will also absorb more of the moisture so the thicker and chewier the final texture will be.
Chill at least 1 hour or overnight.
How to make cookies spread
- Do not refrigerate your cookie dough before shaping the cookies.
- Use melted butter rather than softened room temperature butter.
- Increase the fat content in the cookies.
- Use more white sugar and less brown sugar.
- Make sure your baking powder is not old.
- Add more liquid to your batter.
Most of the time, cookies need to cool for around five to ten minutes before they can be moved and consumed. But it’s not as much of a cut and dry answer as you may think.
What are the primary causes of this? The steam and other hot gasses that were puffing the cookies up either escapes or condenses. Without heat to create more steam, the cookies deflate. You get exactly the same effect with bread, quiches, and other baked goods.
Flat cookies can be the result of a number of issues. Here are some of the main possibilities: OVEN TEMPERATURE: Be sure to have your oven pre-heated and ready to bake. Also be sure that the thermometer is reading correctly.
Follow our simple tips and techniques and you’ll turn out perfect cookies every time.
- Bake Better Cookies.
- Soften Your Butter.
- Creaming Butter.
- Measure Your Flour Correctly.
- Line Your Pans With Parchment Paper.
- Add Eggs One at a Time.
- Add Flour or Dry Ingredients in Batches.
- Fold in Chocolate Chips by Hand.
Simply place the cookie cutter around one of the cookies on the baking sheet. (It should be bigger than the cookie, and therefore not cut off any of the edges.) Then, use the cookie cutter to mold the edges of the cookie from uneven to perfectly round, using a swirling motion.
The biggest benefit of using a cookie scoop instead of any ol’ spoon (or your hands) to transfer cookie dough from the mixing bowl to the cookie sheet is also the most obvious: It creates consistency—the exact same size, shape, and diameter—among each cookie.
Try to keep the weight of your cookies consistent so they bake more evenly. You can use an ice cream scoop or cookie scoop. But make sure and spray the scoops with unflavored cooking spray to keep dough from sticking and making your cookies a true match in size.
How do you speed up thawing cookie dough?
How to Soften Chilled Cookie Dough
- Merrill recommends putting dough near a warm stove, and pounding it with a rolling pin once it starts to soften.
- Trena cuts the dough into smaller pieces using a pastry cutter, figuring that they will come to room temperature faster.
When cookies are cakey, it’s often because the fat:sugar:flour ratio is off. Having too much flour will generally cause drier and cakier cookies. Too much flour is usually a result of measuring it improperly. Always weigh your ingredients instead of using volume for better results.
To spread batter-like dough, pour it into the pan, scraping sides of the mixing bowl to get it all. Use a kitchen knife or a spatula to spread the dough. One of my favorite baking tools is an angled spatula. The angle allows the spatula’s surface to lay flat on the dough surface for a smoother spread.
“Most people think the butter should be so soft that it’s broken down, but the most important thing is that you want a little bit of give to the butter.” If you want to get technical, she says the precise temperature should be between 63 and 68 degrees — where it’s cool to touch, but your finger can leave an indent.
Why Do Cookies Get Hard? Like all baked treats, cookies are subject to getting stale. Over time, the moisture in the cookies evaporates, leaving them stiff and crumbly. It’s the same thing that happens to breads, muffins, and other baked goods.
Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They’ll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven’s hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.
For desserts that are chewy or crisp like cookies, sifting flour isn’t a must. The purpose of sifting flour through a sieve or sifter helps break up clumps and aerates the ingredients. In the past, sifted flour also allowed for more accurate measuring results.
If you want a flatter cookie, eliminate 1 egg and cut back the flour to 2 cups. If you like a really crunchy cookie, add another egg white because it helps to dry out baked goods. If you prefer a moist and chewy cookie, eliminate one egg white and add 2 TBSP of milk.
How to Fix Cakey Cookies
- Don’t Chill Your Cookies.
- Use Melted Butter instead of Room Temperature Butter.
- Use Less Flour.
- Don’t Beat the Butter and Sugar Too Much.
- Add Baking Soda.
- Decrease Baking Powder.
- Drop the Pan on the Counter a Few Times after Baking.
- Decrease the Amount of Eggs.
Often, these mixing methods are categorized by the baked item you are making, and the degree of mixing used to ensure the best baked good possible.
There are three major mixing methods used in baking which consist of:
- The Muffin Method.
- The Biscuit Method.
- The Creaming Method.
You changed the recipe
Or in some cases, the cookie recipe will require you to flatten the cookies before baking if they haven’t been designed to spread naturally. If you reduce the amount of butter or oil in a recipe, your cookies won’t spread as much. If you add too much flour, your cookies won’t spread as much.
Do you cut cookies before or after baking? Cut your cookie dough before baking it. Once the cookies are baked, it’ll be more difficult to get a clean cut.
Adding too much flour to your counter and rolling pin can make your cookies tough—”that’s a big no-no,” according to Catherine. To make sure you have the most tender cookies possible, Catherine recommends rolling out cookie dough between two sheets of very lightly floured waxed paper.