12 Must-Know Cookie Making Techniques

Creating the perfect cookie is the peak of your baking career. Once you’ve found the ideal recipe and procedure for making those cookies, you’re set for life.

Unfortunately, attaining this level of perfection might be tough. I can assure you that you will have to suffer through batches of burnt cookies, flat cookies, excessively crunchy cookies, and cookies that just taste bad.

These tactics and suggestions can help you get those perfect cookies quicker. Once you’ve made them successfully, there’s no stopping you- you’ll be a cookie-making machine!

1 – Cream the Butter

Most cookie recipes start with creaming the butter. This is a critical step that should not be skipped.

As you cream the butter, you introduce air to the mixture, which helps the cookies puff out and rise in the oven. If you’ve ever cooked a batch of cookies that turned out flat, it’s possible that you didn’t cream your butter thoroughly enough.

For around three to five minutes, cream together the butter and sugars. You should also scrape the edges of the bowl often to ensure that all of the butter is equally distributed.

The grainy sugar will aid in the fluffiness of the butter, but after fully creamed, the graininess should be gone.

Despite the presence of sugar, well-creamed butter will feel smooth to the touch. Let the mixer to run and your butter to get light and frothy; this will result in thicker, chewier cookies later on!

2 – Get Your Butter to the Perfect Temperature

Several cookie recipes call for room temperature or softened butter.

Although this makes it simpler to cream the butter, it is best if your butter is soft but still somewhat cold. This may seem perplexing, but bear with me while I explain.

While creaming the butter, you want to integrate air into the mixture, and the firmer the butter, the more air it will contain, resulting in thicker, puffier biscuits. If you attempted to cream melted butter, it would never become light and fluffy and would instead stay liquid.

Creaming soft butter is still simpler on your mixer and a bit faster, but if you truly want those thick cookies, make sure your butter is still a touch chilly and not borderline liquefied.

If you use cold butter, scrape down the bowl periodically since cold butter tends to clump together and need a little additional assistance to be incorporated evenly. While you’re eating a very thick cookie, the extra effort will be worth it!

3 – Choose the Right Pan Liner

What you scoop your cookie dough on top of has a big impact on the final product. The pan and liner you select will directly effect the appearance and feel of the bottoms of your cookies, as well as how your cookie bakes overall.

It used to be sufficient to lightly oil a cookie sheet, place the dough on it, and bake. The bottoms of the cookies were most likely fairly crunchy.

Placing the cookies on a tray that has just been lightly oiled exposes the cookie batter to an extremely hot metal surface. The butter will get very hot, frying the bottoms of the cookies, and the heat of the pan will also cause the bottoms of the cookies to be cooked well done while the remainder of the cookie remains undercooked.

Think again if you think placing a layer of aluminum foil on the tray would help. You’re effectively adding another layer of metal on top of the pan, and the bottoms of the cookies will still be substantially darker than the remainder of the cookie.

One of your best alternatives is to line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. The parchment paper is coated with a very thin layer of silicone, which protects your cookies from coming into direct touch with the hot metal sheet pan.

This is perfect for two reasons: your cookies will pop straight off the parchment paper (no more pulling small pieces of foil off the bottoms of cookies), and the bottoms will remain golden brown while the remainder of the cookie cooks (unless you leave them in the oven for too long which is a whole other story).

Almost every professional bakery employs bakers who use parchment paper- it is simply the greatest!

You may alternatively line your cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat, which has all of the same advantages as parchment paper (they are both made of silicone) but is also reusable. If you bake a lot, they are worth investing in rather than purchasing parchment paper all the time.

4 – Add One Egg at a Time

Several cookie and cake recipes call for adding the eggs one at a time to the creamed butter. Don’t overlook this crucial step!

There is a very excellent reason for adding the eggs gently into the batter: it prevents the batter from breaking. Sure, your batter may be broken.

Cookie batter is an emulsion, particularly when the liquid eggs are added to the oily butter.

To form an emulsion, you must first make the eggs and butter buddies and bond together. If it fails, your wonderfully creamed butter will collapse, and all the pleasant air you managed to whip into it will be gone.

You will obtain a lovely, smooth cookie dough if you proceed slowly, add one egg and let it mix into the mixture, then add another egg and let that one blend in. Your emulsion will be created, and the air bubbles in the batter will be trapped (remember, you want those bubbles to create thick, chewy biscuits!).

Don’t be in a hurry! For the victory, one egg at a time!

5 – Use Cornstarch

Cornstarch will become your new best buddy if you want thick, chewy cookies. In a regular cookie recipe, combine a teaspoon of cornstarch with the dry ingredients.

Cornstarch keeps the cookies tall and thick instead of spreading thinly as they bake. It holds the components together and also functions as a leavener (along with baking powder or soda that your recipe may already use).

Cornstarch is likewise flavorless, thus the taste of your cookie wont be unaffected. With a bit more cornstarch, you’ll have the tallest, gooiest cookies you’ve ever cooked!

6 – Measure Carefully

Baking is a science, and instructions must be followed properly.

If you’re making a chicken supper at home, add a little of salt or a dash of garlic and your meal will taste just fine. But, doing so in baking might result in tragedy.

A pinch of baking powder is not the same as a teaspoon of baking powder, which may be required to make your cookies rise.

If you guess the appropriate amount of flour, your cookies will either spread thinly (not enough flour) or turn tough (too much flour).

So bring out the measuring cups and spoons and be sure to measure correctly- your cookies will be lot better as a consequence, and you will have more consistent results every time you bake.

7 – Ice Cream Scoop Those Cookies

If you want to bake the ideal cookie, it must be spherical and immaculate.

To get this consistent, flawless round appearance, portion the dough using an ice cream scooper. Every cookie will have the same size and shape.

This also helps with baking since cookies of the same size bake at the same pace.

Ice cream scoops are more than simply for scooping ice cream; they are also your cookies’ best buddy!

Use a cookie press to make additional cookie shapes; see my favorites here.

8 – Give the Cookies Space

Nothing is worse than opening your oven to find a huge lump of cookie dough (unless you want to eat one enormous cookie all to yourself!). This issue can easily addressed by just spreading out the cookie dough on the sheet pan.

Allow at least two inches between each cookie dough ball to allow for spreading. The larger the cookie dough ball, the more room it may need. Simple enough!

9 – Preheat Your Oven

While making cookies, you must first preheat your oven. Cookies will begin to bake the moment they come into contact with the heat, therefore you don’t want it to be too low, since this will cause your cookies to remain in the oven for much longer, drying them out.

Before you even bring out your mixer, preheat your oven to the appropriate temperature. Ovens normally take 10 minutes or more to reach the right temperature, so plan accordingly!

10 – Turn The Pan

There is a hot spot in every oven. Even if it is a brand new, cutting-edge oven, I promise that one area is somewhat hotter than the others.

Turn the tray of cookies halfway through the baking process to help counteract this hot zone. Just reach in with a pot holder and turn the tray 180 degrees.

This will ensure that your cookies bake evenly and evenly, rather than one side cooking darker than the other.

11 – Wait! Let Them Cool

I know it’s tempting to remove the cookies off the baking pan right away, but resist!

Cookies are so hot when they come out of the oven that they will not maintain their form. If you attempt to remove them off the tray right away, they will most likely shatter.

Although everyone appreciates broken cookies, they will not achieve the degree of perfection you want. Wait at least 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

12 – Store Them Well

Now that you’ve prepared the ideal cookie, make sure you preserve it properly.

Put the cookies in an airtight container, such as a cookie tin, Tupperware, or a plastic-wrapped plate.

If you leave your cookies out in the open, they will rapidly dry up and turn hard. All of your efforts in crafting a cookie masterpiece will be in vain! Wrap them neatly and they’ll be ready for another day!

Now that you’ve learned a few methods and tips, you’re ready to bake. Start with your grandmother’s renowned cookie recipe! Keep all of the tips in mind while you bake, and your results will be spectacular!