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Using store-bought cookie dough is great for fulfilling an urgent craving for "homemade" cookies. Made-from scratch cookies is the way to go, however, for special occasions or gifts from the kitchen. If you know what to watch out for and what to be aware of, you can bake batches of sweet treats that will be a pleasure to the eye — and the palate.
 | Correct measuring of ingredients goes a long way toward preventing problems during baking. Use the scoop-and-sweep method for dry ingredients such as flour. Using the appropriate measuring cup or measuring spoon, scoop up your dry ingredient. Next, level off the top with a straight edge, such as the back of a knife blade or edge of a ruler. Use a liquid measuring cup (the kind with a spout) for liquid ingredients and read it at eye level. |
My cookie dough is too soft or sticky when it's rolled or pressed
The main cause of soft or sticky cookie dough is that the dough is too warm or doesn't have enough flour. The butter may have been too soft when it was mixed with the dough, or there's too much liquid in the dough. Perhaps the weather is hot and the dough has softened too much while mixing.
Whatever the cause, the solution is to cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze it until it's firm enough to handle. Divide the dough into quarters and work with only one portion at a time while keeping the other portions cold. Another solution is to stir in one or two more tablespoons of flour to the dough, let it chill for 15 to 30 minutes, and then roll the dough out again. If the dough is still sticky when cold, dust the work surface and the dough lightly with flour.
My dough is too crumbly and cracks when it's rolled
Dough crumbles and cracks when it doesn't have enough liquid or fat or has too much flour. Another cause of this problem is that the dough is too cold.
The solution for crumbly dough is to add more liquid. If the recipe calls for large eggs and you have used small or medium eggs, add another egg yolk to the dough. Or add 1 to 2 tablespoons of cream, milk, or water to the dough and mix well.
If the dough feels too cold, let it stand at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes until it becomes more pliable.
Eggs that are too small sometimes contribute to the problem of crumbling. If small or medium eggs are used, they don't have enough liquid for the mixture. Use large eggs instead.
My cookies spread too much when baking
Many factors may cause your cookies to spread during baking. The baking sheet may be overgreased, the cookie dough may have been placed on a hot cookie sheet, the unbaked cookies may have been too warm when placed on the cookie sheet, or too much leavening was added when mixing the dough. Cookies will also spread too much if there is too much fat and/or liquid and not enough flour in the dough.
Although lining cookie sheets with parchment paper or another nonstick pan liner is the best way to prepare them, greasing the cookie sheets is okay if you do it sparingly. Too much grease causes the cookies to spread easily. In fact, some cookie recipes call for the sheet to be ungreased.
| Parchment paper is one of the world's best inventions. Its nonstick surface solves all the problems caused by under- or overgreasing cookie sheets. It also makes cleanup a breeze. If nothing has spilled on the cookie sheets, simply toss out the parchment and return the cookie sheets to the cabinet until the next baking session. |
Cookies will start to spread even before reaching the oven if the cookie sheet is too hot. If the cookie sheet has been used to bake one batch, let it cool for 10 to 15 minutes before baking another batch. You can also cool cookie sheets by running them under cold water and then drying them or chilling them quickly in the refrigerator.
 | If possible, try to have more than one cookie sheet so that you can alternate them. Having three cookie sheets is even better. That way, you can be placing cookies on one cookie sheet while the second one in the oven and the third one cools. |
If the cookies have been sitting out at room temperature waiting for a cookie sheet, they may be too soft and warm and will spread too much. Keep those "waiting" cookies in the refrigerator until they're ready to bake.
Try adding 2 to 4 more tablespoons of flour to the dough and bake a test cookie to see if it's the right texture and consistency.
My cookies are too crisp and dark on the bottom
There are several possible causes of overly crisp, dark cookies. Perhaps the oven temperature was too hot, or the cookie sheets were too dark or too thin. The cookies may have been baked on the lower rack, too close to the source of heat, or the cookie sheets could have been overgreased.
| Keep an oven thermometer in your oven and check it frequently for accuracy. Adjust your temperature down if necessary. It may be time to have your oven calibrated. If you have a gas oven, your local gas company will usually check it for free. |
Use shiny, heavy-gauge aluminum cookie sheets. Dark cookie sheets absorb heat quicker than the shiny ones. If you use dark cookie sheets, lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees to prevent overbrowning. If the cookie sheets are too thin, they let too much heat come through. Insulate a thin cookie sheet by lining it with aluminum foil or place a second cookie sheet underneath. You can also use insulated cookie sheets that have a layer of air between two pieces of metal.
Bake cookies on the middle rack or switch the cookie sheets to different oven racks halfway through baking. Grease the pans very lightly or, better yet, use nonstick parchment paper or another nonstick liner to line the cookie sheets.
My cookies are too dry or too moist
Dryness is a result of overbaking. Conversely, cookies that are underbaked are too moist or soft. Check the cookies for doneness a few minutes before the least amount of baking time given in the recipe. Touch the top of the cookies to check for doneness. If the top springs back or feels firm, they're done.
If the cookies collapse when you touch them, add a couple more minutes of baking time. Check the cookies at 1- or 2-minute intervals so that they don't overbake.
Be sure that your oven is at the correct temperature. You may need to turn the oven down 25 degrees. Keep an oven thermometer in the oven and check it often for accuracy.
My cookies break apart when moved to a cooling rack
Some cookies with a high proportion of fat in the dough are likely candidates for falling apart when moved. The best way to handle this problem is to let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for a couple minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
My cookies stick to the cookie sheet
You think you've done everything just right when baking a batch of cookies. They look great on the baking sheet, and you can hardly wait to let them cool so you can try one. Bu when you attempt to release the cookies from the cookie sheet, they stick like glue. How disappointing!
Several factors may cause this problem. Either the baking sheet was not prepared properly, or the cookies were allowed to cool on the sheet too long before they were transferred to a cooling rack. Evenly grease the cookie sheet or use parchment paper to prepare the sheet.
| The easiest way to unstick cookies is to return the cookie sheet to the warm oven for 1 to 2 minutes and then immediately transfer them from the cookie sheet to the cooling rack. |
My cookies bake unevenly on the cookie sheet
cookie dough that isn't rolled to an equal thickness or shaped uniformly is one cause of uneven baking. Another cause of this problem is hot spots in the oven.
Place cookies that are the same size and thickness on the cookie sheet together. If you're baking more than one cookie sheet at a time, switch the cookie sheets to different oven racks halfway through baking and rotate them from front to back. Also check the oven thermometer for accurate temperature. You may need to adjust the oven temperature by 25 degrees.
My cookie dough sticks to the mold
When dough sticks to the mold, it means you've used too much fat and too little flour to prepare the cookie mold.
The easiest way to prevent this problem from occurring is to lightly spray the molds with a nonstick combination vegetable oil and flour spray. Or grease the mold with fat (butter) and lightly flour the mold. Tap the mold on the countertop to release excess flour before molding the dough.
My molded cookies lose their detail when baked
If your molded cookies lose some detail during baking, the cookie dough probably had too much leavening, causing the cookies to rise too much and thereby lose their detail. Or perhaps the dough wasn't molded firmly enough to pick up the detail. Another cause, in the case of springerle cookies, is that after shaping the cookies may not have been allowed to sit long enough before they were baked.
Firmly pack the dough into all the crevices of the mold so it will pick up all the detail. Bake the cookies immediately after molding.
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