Baking powder simply adds carbon dioxide to the equation, providing a more forceful pressure that encourages a dough to spread up and out. Without the well-developed elasticity of a bread dough, the strands of gluten in cookies would sooner snap than stretch, cracking along the surface.
If you swap in an equal amount of baking soda for baking powder in your baked goods, they won’t have any lift to them, and your pancakes will be flatter than, well, pancakes. You can, however, make a baking powder substitute by using baking soda.
(Exactly) How to Make Fluffy Cookies: 11 Genius Tips for Puffy…
- Make Sure Your Baking Soda and Baking Powder aren’t Expired.
- Use Baking Powder instead of Baking Soda.
- Roll Your Dough Balls into Cylinders.
- Chill the Dough.
- Use a Silicone Mat, not a Greased Baking Sheet.
- Add another Egg Yolk.
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.
Baking soda and baking powder are both leavening agents, which are substances used to help baked goods rise.
It is possible to make cookies without baking soda or baking powder, but the resulting cookie will be dense. This is because carbon dioxide is not being produced by a chemical reaction that typically occurs when baking soda or powder is present in the cookie batter.
But for chocolate chip cookies, you’d use baking soda because it allows the dough to spread, and you get thinner, crisp edges with a tender center.
For softer, chewier cookies, you will want to add much less granulated sugar, slightly more brown sugar, and a fair bit less butter. For cakey cookies, you will often be including even less butter and sugar.
The most common reason that cookies are tough is that the cookie dough was mixed too much. When flour is mixed into the dough, gluten begins to form. Gluten helps hold baked goods together, but too much gluten can lead to tough cookies.
Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate and acidic salts. The reaction of these two ingredients results in a cookie that is soft and thick, but slightly harder.
Rest the Dough A secret baker’s trick is to rest your cookie dough in the fridge. You can rest it for at least an hour, which will evaporate some of the water and increase the sugar content, helping to keep your cookies chewy. The longer you allow your dough to rest in the fridge, the chewier your cookies will be.
While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.
The most common cause is using a different flour than usual, such as cake flour, and measuring flour with too heavy a hand. Using larger eggs than called for can make cookies cakey, as will the addition of milk or more milk or other liquids than specified.
So as you can see, baking soda is a very important ingredient when making cookies. Without baking soda, your cookies would not be soft and fluffy and both their taste and their texture would suffer.
Basically, the reason for both is because sometimes you need more leavening than you have acid available in the recipe. It’s all about balance. Another reason to use both baking powder and baking soda is because they affect both browning and flavor.
One of the most common reasons why cookies didn’t spread out in the oven is because you added too much flour. Cookies rely on the perfect ratio of butter to flour in order to spread just the right amount when baked. It’s very easy to over measure flour when using cup measurements.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
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. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.
Use a small amount of an acidic condiment such as lemon juice or vinegar to neutralise the soda. If the recipe has chocolate, simply add half a teaspoon of cocoa powder to it. Buttermilk can also be used to counter the pungent taste of baking soda.
Vinegar is a surprisingly common ingredient in baked goods, considering that it has such a sharp flavor. But as an acid, vinegar is often included in cake and cookie batters to react with baking soda and start the chemical reaction needed to produce carbon dioxide and give those batters a lift as they bake.
Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies. That said, using a combination of butter and vegetable shortening (as in the original recipe), or even using all butter, will make an acceptably crunchy chocolate chip cookie.
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.
Keep Them Sealed
The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here’s a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.
(Exactly) How to Make Cookies Moist: 9 Easy Ways
- Add Cream Cheese to the Dough. What is this?
- Use Instant Pudding Mix in the Dough.
- Use Brown Sugar instead of White Sugar.
- Underbake the Cookies Slightly.
- Add Sour Cream.
- Add Corn Syrup.
- Store on Sheets of Wax Paper with a Slice of Bread.
- Use Shortening.
Why This Happened: Melting the butter first means it will mix more easily with the flour making the gluten form more than softened butter. More gluten = more chew. So a melted butter cookie will have a bit more chew. But they will spread more since the butter was already a liquid.
Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder.
Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren’t as flavorful.
Sugars, like fats liquefy in the oven. White sugar will make your cookies crispier while brown sugar contains more moisture and will result in a softer and more chewy cookie. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes call for both sugars.
Yolks, where all of the fat is in an egg, increase richness, tenderness and flavor. Therefore, if you put an extra egg, you will get a chewier cookie. I do it all the time. If you put less, you will get a more crumbly cookie.
Mistake: When cookies turn out flat, the bad guy is often butter that is too soft or even melted. This makes cookies spread. The other culprit is too little flour—don’t hold back and make sure you master measuring. Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets.
For desserts that are chewy or crisp like cookies, sifting flour isn’t a must. The purpose of sifting flour through a sieve or sifter helps break up clumps and aerates the ingredients. In the past, sifted flour also allowed for more accurate measuring results.
If you want a flatter cookie, eliminate 1 egg and cut back the flour to 2 cups. If you like a really crunchy cookie, add another egg white because it helps to dry out baked goods. If you prefer a moist and chewy cookie, eliminate one egg white and add 2 TBSP of milk.
Thus, if your butter is too cold, your cookies will be denser, and they will likely not spread enough in the pan when you bake them. In general, you want your butter to be cool, but not cold. The right way: Let your butter sit out for 15 minutes (but not longer — see below) before creaming.
Pastry Flour: An unbleached flour made from soft wheat, with protein levels somewhere between cake flour and all-purpose flour (8 to 9 percent). Pastry flour strikes the ideal balance between flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and many cookies.
Chilling cookie dough controls spread.
Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.
The most common reason why your cookies don’t spread is that you’ve added too much flour. Adding more dry ingredients than the recipe calls for can result in a dough that is too stiff. Moisture and fat in the dough are soaked up by the excessive amount of flour which takes away its ability to spread.
Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation, causing the cookies to spread. I always recommend a silicone baking mat because they grip onto the bottom of your cookie dough, preventing the cookies from spreading too much.
How To Make Thicker Cookies (Using 10 Simple Tips)
- 1 – Refrigerate Your Cookie Dough.
- 2 – Use Room-Temperature Butter.
- 3 – Use the Correct Fat.
- 4 – Focus on Your Mixing Technique.
- 5 – Add Less Granulated Sugar.
- 6 – Add More Flour.
- 7 – Use Bleached Flour.
- 8 – Check Your Rising Agent.
If your oven is too hot, the fat melts faster than the cookie is able to set, and you end up with pancake cookies. Always preheat your oven and invest in a good oven thermometer. Even new ovens can be incorrectly calibrated, so check the actual temperature every time you put a pan in the oven.
The combination of the toasted grain with the browned butter, caramelized sugar, vanilla and chocolate are “the beautiful rich flavors that blend together in a chocolate chip cookie,” she said. And as the chocolate melts, it becomes more aromatic and punches up the flavor.
Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there’s less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.
When added to cake, cookie and shortbread recipes, cornstarch helps create a crumbly and tender dessert-like texture. Commercially, cornstarch is often used as an anti-caking agent.
What does apple cider do for baking?
Apple cider vinegar is a popular flavor and texture enhancer in baking, especially when making vegan treats that can’t include eggs. It can also add extra flavor to homemade candy and caramels, like in this recipe.