5 Mistakes to Avoid When Making Sugar Cookies (2024)

FAQs

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Making Sugar Cookies? ›

Overmixing is exactly what it sounds like: the process by which a dough or batter gets mixed too much, typically yielding dense, tough, or deflated baked goods. Overmixed doughs and batters may have an unappealing look or feel, which remain just as unappealing when they're baked.

Overmixing is exactly what it sounds like: the process by which a dough or batter gets mixed too much, typically yielding dense, tough, or deflated baked goods. Overmixed doughs and batters may have an unappealing look or feel, which remain just as unappealing when they're baked.

But when cookies go bad, they give out a pungent smell that is often hard to ignore. This is one of the telling signs that the cookie in hand is bad. It is best to rely on our sensory organs while judging the shelf-life of cookies. Apart from the smell, if the cookies seem unnaturally hard, they are likely to be stale.

Measuring flour the wrong way is probably the biggest cookie-baking mistake out there. If you're measuring your flour by scooping your measuring cup into the bag of flour, you could be using as much as 30 percent extra flour in your dough. That's going to make your cookies dry and tough.

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.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

Over-creamed butter and sugar adds in too much air and alters the final texture – typically to be more gummy and dense. Sometimes over-creaming can produce cakes, cupcakes, or cookies that collapse upon baking or while cooling if the mixture is well and truly over-creamed (where it looks like curdled milk).

What is the best thickness for sugar cookies? ›

Place each portion onto a piece of lightly floured parchment paper or a lightly floured silicone baking mat. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Use more flour if the dough seems too sticky. The rolled-out dough can be any shape, as long as it is evenly 1/4-inch thick.

Too much baking powder can cause the batter to be bitter tasting. It can also cause the batter to rise rapidly and then collapse. (i.e. The air bubbles in the batter grow too large and break causing the batter to fall.) Cakes will have a coarse, fragile crumb with a fallen center.

The holes trick

There's also a new technique going around when preventing craters in a second layer of icing: poke holes in the base flood (under the area you'll cover with a second layer of icing). You can even do this when the first layer flood has completely dried!

Take plain sugar cookies up a notch with exciting mix-ins like chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, toasted chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit or M&M's. Add these after blending your butter and egg into the sugar cookie mix.

Room Temperature:

Decorate the cookies within 48 hours of being baked, as they will start to become stale if left at room temperature for too long.

Bad dough is usually the result of a dough recipe not followed, the introduction of too much cold, heat or water during preparation or problematic mixing. To avoid such issues, get the ratio of dry ingredients to wet ingredients correct.

Eggs in Raw Cookie Dough

Eggshells can also become contaminated with salmonella bacteria when they're laid. Eggs that contain salmonella look just like normal eggs.