Tips on Making Good Cookies

Baking Tip of the Day

Cookies are easy to make with these tips from professional chefs.

Salt always brings out the flavor of any food that it is added to, especially chocolate. That can be said of cookies as well. If the recipe doesn’t list salt as an ingredient, add 1/4 teaspoon to the recipe. Some chefs sprinkle a pinch of flaked sea salt onto cookies immediately after taking out of the oven.

Butter should be a room temperature. This is so air can easily be mixed into the creaming of the butter and sugar. Beat for 3 minutes to integrate enough air to make cookies light.

For soft cookies use brown sugar. White sugar creates crisp cookies. A combination of both white and brown sugar can be experimented with to get the exact desired texture. A tablespoon of honey or molasses will also keep the cookies softer.

For tender cookies add one or two teaspoons of cornstarch to the cookie dough. The cornstarch holds more moisture in the baked cookie.

Baking sheets should be shiny and ungreased. Blackened sheets will produce a harder cookie. Baking sheets need to be at room temperature so if baking more than one batch, cool sheets between batches or have several baking sheets ready to use.

Cookies should never be overbaked. Remove the cookies 1 to 2 minutes sooner than the recipe recommends. The cookies will continue to bake but will stay softer.

Store cookies in an airtight container to keep them fresh longer. Adding a piece of bread will also help keep them fresh and tender.

If mailing or shipping cookies in a flat container as a gift, or for the holidays, place a tortilla in with the cookies. The tortilla keeps the cookies moist just as bread does.

For more information on cookie making read:

How to Make Your Cookies Soft
Christmas Cookie Tradition
Christmas Cookie Santa Trivia