Tricks to Bake Perfect Cookies Everytime
We LOVE cookies! And, baking cookies is almost as much fun as eating them. Almost. The Old Farmer’s Almanac has ten tips that every cookie baker needs to know to make perfect, delicious cookies every time. Turn on your oven, and let’s get baking!
1. Organize
Clutter is your worst enemy. You can’t bake if the counter is a mess, the bottle of vanilla extract is hiding, and there’s no place to put the cooling rack. Clear your work area before you begin, and get out all the ingredients. Put each one away as you use it so you don’t forget what you’ve used. Rinse bowls and utensils as you go.
2. Read Carefully
Read the recipe through before you do anything. As you read, check your supply of staples (flour, sugar, butter) and watch for any unusual ingredients, steps, or equipment that might trip you up. For example, if the dough has to chill for 12 hours, you should know this before you start in case you need the cookies by noon today.
3. Fresh Ingredients
Insist on good, fresh ingredients. Spices lose their flavor over time; replace them if you’ve had them around since last December. Use fresh local eggs if you can find them. Unsalted (“sweet”) butter is preferable to salted; it tastes cleaner, sweeter, and fresher than salted butter—and often it is. Because salt acts as a preservative, salted butter can be warehoused longer than unsalted.
4. Room Temperature Butter
The butter must be at room temperature—not too cold, or your cookies will be too dense. If you forget to soften your butter ahead of time, cut the stick(s) into thin pats and place them on a room-temperature plate. Leave in a warm spot for 10 minutes or so until the butter yields gently to finger pressure. Not too soft, or it won’t hold up and make a greasy dough instead of a fluffy dough. Even if a recipe calls for softened butter, it doesn’t have to be squishy soft.
5. Properly Toast Nuts
When a recipe calls for toasted nuts, thoroughly cool them before adding them to the dough. (Incidentally, toasted nuts mean 8 to 10 minutes in a 350°F oven.) Adding hot nuts to a dough could melt the butter and drastically change the texture of your cookies, but probably not for the better.
6. Use High-Quality Baking Sheets
If you don’t already own them, buy yourself some good baking sheets. Thin, flimsy sheets don’t diffuse heat well or evenly and can result in scorched cookie bottoms. Tinned steel and anodized aluminum are two good material choices. Neither is inexpensive, but they’ll last. Look for them in gourmet kitchen shops. While you’re there, invest in a heavy-duty stainless steel cooling rack large enough to hold 2 to 3 dozen cookies. Letting your cookies cool directly on the hot pans can lead to over-browning on the bottoms and soggy cookies.
7. One at a Time, Please!
Generally speaking, bake only one sheet of cookies at a time on the center rack. Doing this allows for the most even baking! Cookies may burn too quickly if they’re too high in the oven.
8. Completely Cool Baking Sheets
If you own only one cookie sheet, let your sheet trays utterly cool to room temperature before baking another batch. This prevents the butter from melting out of the dough and puddling up on the sheet.
9. Cool on the Sheet
As a rule, let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 1 to 2 minutes. This is just long enough to firm them slightly and make it easier to slide them off the sheet and onto a rack.
10. Properly Package
And here’s a shipping tip! Most cookies ship well. For best results, however, choose a relatively firm or dense type of cookie. Wrap cookies individually in waxed paper and pack them snugly in a tin. Pack the tin inside a bigger box, cushioned on all sides, with additional waxed paper. And it never hurts to be nice to the postal clerk.
Cook Cookies With the Almanac
Enjoy this video demonstrating some cookie-baking tips—and get into the spirit!
Ready? Browse Our Delicious Cookie Recipes
Now, check out some delicious cookie recipes and enjoy trying out your baking skills!
Ken Haedrich
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These are great tips, they've really improved my at-home cookie baking. I especially appreciate Rennie's question, because I thought I would never master high altitude baking. Of course, right when I did start to get the hang of it we moved to a lower altitude. But at least I know I can do it, now! Thiago | http://www.cookiefactoryspringfield.com
Anyone got any tips for high altitude baking of cookies. I was once the queen of cookies but we moved to a mountainous area a little over a year ago and I have not been able to make a decent cookie. They always turn out very flat. Taste is ok but they look hideous. I have not run across any cookie recipe that has adjustments for baking cookies. Any help would be really appreciated. davren2@gmail.com
Hi there. I found this site that should help you in adjusting your ingredients for the altitude you are at. I hope it helps.;
http://www.highaltitudebaking.com/adj_recipes.htm
When my children were small, we'd spend many hours every Christmas season baking and decorating sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies to share as gifts and to enjoy ourselves. Before baking, I'd use a plastic drinking straw to poke a hole in the top of the cookie. Once baked, I'd string with Christmas ribbon and hang on the tree. This made the Christmas tree safer and more accessible to even the smallest children in our home.
I read a tip somewhere, maybe a cookie cookbook, that said to take a dish towel and wipe down your cookie sheets between each batch that it will help prevent the cookies from sticking.I've been doing it since I read it all those years ago and it works great! No sprays needed.
Some excellent tips! By the way, that tip regarding organizing your ingredients before you start and putting away each ingredient as soon as you've used it applies to baking ANYTHING, not just cookies. :)
If you forget to soften your butter in advance and you're in a hurry, nuke it in the microwave for a few seconds. (Caution! If your butter stick is wrapped in foil, remove the wrapper BEFORE you put it in the microwave, otherwise you'll get arcing, you know, that scary flash of "lightning bolts.") Another way to save a bit of time is to mix together as many of the dry ingredients in advance as possible and store the mixture in a storage container with a lid. (I use large margarine containers that have been cleaned out.)
If you prefer your cookies soft and chewy rather than crispy and crumbly, as I do, bake them at 300 degrees for about 25 minutes.
I'm not a big fan of using parchment paper myself. I prefer using my trusty Baker's Joy baking spray. (PAM has their own version of Baker's Joy now, but it's more expensive.) I'm not so lazy that I either can't or won't clean off a baking sheet.
If you don't have enough cooling racks use a clean grocery bag ripped open to lie flat. I've been doing this for the last 30 years and it works great.
Try packing cookies in popped/unbuttered popcorn. When your package arrives the popcorn will be stale (but good for birds) and the cookies will be in good shape.
Silicone baking sheets for cookies are THE BOMB !! GET ONE and you will NEVER go back to greasing and/or scrubbing cookie off the baking sheets.
This is true. These are awesome!!
