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Today I’m revealing the secrets behind baking perfect cookies. You’ll learn why the 3 biggest reasons your cookies flop, fail, or don’t turn out quite right.
If you’ve ever had cookies unintentionally turn out totally flat, cakey, greasy, underbaked, or cookies that never spread at all, just keep reading!
As a professionally-trained chef and cookbook author, I know a LOT about cookies. I wrote a whole cookbook about cookies called The Ultimate Cookie Handbook (now available on Amazon US!), packed full of great recipes + an entire chapter dedicated to the science behind baking the perfect cookie.
I also published my Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookiesback in 2013 and it’s been featured in People, Time, and NPR!
So, I’ve compiled some of my best tips just below that will answer the most common questions and frustrations I see.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Cookie Customization Guide
The 3 Biggest Reasons Your Cookies Flop
1. Temperatures
The most important temperature behind beautiful bakery-quality cookies is that of your butter.
- If you’ve ever had cookies spread into flat puddles while baking, or deflate after cooling, listen up!
- When you go to cream your butter and sugar when making cookies, the butter should be at a COOL room temperature. To be precise, it should be 67°F.
Just take a look at what happens when your butter is too warm:
Learn more about baking THICK cookies here.
The second most important temperature is that of your oven.
- Make sure your oven temperature is accurate.
- Did you know many home ovens can be off by over 20°F?
- An oven thermometer is the best and easiest way to tell how accurate your oven actually is.
- When baking, always allow your oven to preheat for an extra 10 minutes to ensure it’s up to temperature.
- Always bake on the middle rack.
- Bake just one batch at a time for perfectly even cooking.
- Pop the remaining unbaked cookie dough in the fridge as each batch bakes, to prevent the dough from becoming too warm and turning into flat cookies.
Look at what a big difference temperature can make:
Learn more about oven secrets here!
2. Accurate Measuring
One of the quickest and easiest ways to improve your baking FOREVER is to learn how to measure your flour correctly.
This is shockingly easy to get wrong.
- Because flour compacts so easily, you can wind up accidentally adding 20% more flour to your dough if you don’t measure it the professional way.
- The best way to measure your flour, and all your baking ingredients, is to use a digital kitchen scale.
Take a look at the difference that measuring methods can have on your cookies:
If you don’t have a digital scale and it’s not in the budget right now, the second best way to measure your flour is to use the spoon-and-level method:
- Fluff up your flour.
- Spoon the flour into your measuring cup until you have a tall mound.
- Scrape the excess flour back into the container until it’s level with the cup.
To learn how professionals measure flour for perfect results, click here!
3. Correct Equipment
The equipment you use has a surprisingly big impact on how your cookies will turn out.
- It’s not always about having the most expensive equipment, but the right equipment.
- When it comes to cookies, the most important piece to pay attention to is your baking pans!
- What’s the best baking pan for cookies? Unlined aluminum half-sheet pans.
- I prefer the NordicWare brand, available here.
- I prefer to bake my cookies on parchment paper. Read why I prefer parchment over silicone mats here.
- Whatever you do, NEVER bake cookies on a dark-colored baking pan, and NEVER grease your pans or parchment/silicone mats. That’s the fastest way to burn those bottoms.
Take a look at the picture below. Each cookie was baked from the same exact batch of dough, just on a different baking sheet:
See what a difference just your baking pan makes?!
Learn more about the best (and worst) baking pans here!
A Few Bonus Tips to Prevent Cookie Flops
The tips above are the 3 Biggest Reasons Your Cookies Flop, but here are a few bonus tips for you:
- Are your leavening agents expired? If your baking soda and baking powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly, fall after baking, and much more. Learn more about this, and how to test your leavening agents for freshness here.
- How long are your creaming your butter and sugar(s) together? This has a surprisingly big impact on your cookies’ outcome, too. Learn more about this here.
- Did you alter the recipe? I know it can be tempting to reduce the sugar or substitute ingredients, but this can completely change the chemistry of the recipe and ruin the cookies. Learn the role sugar plays in baking here (spoiler alert: it’s more than just sweetening!) and learn why I hate baking substitutions here.
More Cookie Science Articles:
- Best Baking Pans
- The BEST Cookie Scoops (Plus How and Why to Use One!)
- How to Bake Picture-Perfect Cookies
If you want to see all of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes in one place, click here.
FAQs
The Problem: Your Oven Is Too Hot
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.
What causes cookies to fall? ›
The Problem: Your Oven Is Too Hot
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.
What are 3 factors that cause a cookie to be crisp? ›
The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.
Why did my cookie fail? ›
Using the wrong type of flour (or just too much flour).
Using too much flour will make your cookies too cakey, so try reducing the flour amount by two tablespoons. Avoid using cake flour instead; try a mix of all-purpose flour and bread flour for a more dense and chewy texture.
What are the causes of poor quality cookies? ›
Adding too little flour can cause cookies to be flat, greasy, and crispy. Most recipes assume you'll use all-purpose, but if you want a lighter, crumblier cookie texture, choose one with a lower protein content such as cake-and-pastry flour. Baking soda helps cookies spread outward and upward while cooking.
What makes cookies fluffy and not flat? ›
Butter keeps cookies fluffy in two ways. First, creaming cold butter with sugar creates tiny, uniform air pockets that will remain in the dough it bakes up. Second, cold butter naturally takes a longer time to melt in the oven.
How to keep cookies from falling after baking? ›
Don't overmix the cookie dough ingredients.
Cream the butter and sugar for only as long as you need to, usually about 1-2 minutes. Don't begin beating then leave the room with the mixer running. I'm guilty of this too! Whipping too much air into the dough will cause those cookies to collapse when they bake.
What is the secret to chewy cookies? ›
Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
What are 3 characteristics of a good cookie? ›
Normally the cookie should not be too flat - should be rounded in the middle, should snap if it's crispy or bend and break if it's chewy.
What is the secret to a crunchy cookie? ›
A lower oven temperature will give your cookies more time to spread before they start to rise, resulting in a crispier cookie. I recommend baking your cookies for a bit longer at a lower temperature to achieve the texture you're looking for. You can also play around with the type of pan you're using.
Cookies themselves are harmless since the data they contain never changes. They are unable to install malware or viruses on computers. Some cyber attacks, unfortunately, have the ability to access user browsing sessions and hijack cookies. They can trace people's browsing history, which is dangerous.
How to make your cookies rise more? ›
Baking Powder. The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.
Which temperature of butter makes large cookies? ›
Most cookie recipes call for beating room-temperature butter. At a temperature between 70 and 72 degrees F, butter is soft enough to incorporate air, but not so soft that it will melt immediately in the oven and result in super-thin cookies.
What are 3 problems with baking cookies? ›
But anyone who's ever made cookies has experienced the agony of treat defeat when a batch baked with the highest of hopes just doesn't hit the mark. They could be dry or doughy, tough or crumbly, spread too thin (or hardly spread at all), entirely too sweet or bewilderingly bland, or burnt or underbaked.
Why did my cookies flop? ›
Cookies may flatten for a lot of reasons. The most common culprit is leavening agents (like Baking Soda and Baking Powder) that are expired. Another possible cause is too much butter in the dough or not enough flour.
Why do cookies fall? ›
OVEN IS TOO HOT
If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.
How do you keep cookies from losing their shape? ›
To help cookies keep their shape, freeze them! I freeze each batch of cut-out cookies for 5 to 10 minutes before baking. They rise just slightly higher and keep their shape better. This really helps when using an intricate cookie cutter, but I do this even when baking circles.
What causes cookies to sink in the middle? ›
The oven is too hot
The problem could have nothing to do with the recipe; it could be your oven. General temperature variations, as well as hot spots, can cause the cookies to become flat. Overly hot ovens can melt the butter in your cookies before the other ingredients have firmed up.
What causes runny cookies? ›
Kind of like how crumbly dough is usually because there's too much of the dry ingredients, runny cookie dough comes from having too much of the liquid ingredients.
