Have you ever taken your freshly baked cookies out of the oven, only for them to look as flat as a pancake? If you’re familiar with baking cookies, you may have experienced this at least once. But why do the cookies come out looking flat? Well, there are a number of reasons why your cookies could fall flat. I’ll be breaking down the reasons in this article.
Common Cookie-Baking Struggles
Baking cookies can be frustrating when your dough just dies and does what you expect. It’s possible that you followed the recipe step by step, but still ended up with flat cookies. Flat cookies are a classic baking issue that results from different causes.
Butter: Too Hot or Too Cold?
One of the most common reasons for flat cookies is melted butter. Melting butter seems like the easiest route to follow while mixing. But if the butter is too hot, the dough might spread too much in the oven, making your cookies thin. If you want to melt your butter, make sure the butter is just melted and not melted in a way that it’s bubbling hot. Room temperature butter is often great for cookie recipes, because it allows the dough to stay together. If you absolutely must melt the butter, let it cool to room temperature before using it.
Are You Using Enough Flour?
Another possible culprit is not using enough flour. Your cookies may not be rising because your dough doesn’t have enough flour to give it structure. Flour helps to hold the dough together and give the cookies their shape.
If your butter has too much moisture, or if you’ve accidentally added too little flour your cookies will end up flatter than you’d like. However, if you add too much flour your cookies could become dry and crumbly. One too us to use a knife to level the flour in the measuring cup, so you don’t end up using excess.
Baking Soda
Baking soda or baking powder, depending on the ingredients, is another ingredient that gives cookies its rise. If you use expired baking soda or too little or too much, your cookies can fall flat in a hurry. Baking soda helps the dough rise because it reacts with the acid in the dough, which releases carbon dioxide bubbles that puff up your cookies. When using your baking soda or powder, make sure it’s fresh and measured carefully. Don’t add too much, but add enough so your cookies don’t fall flat.
Mixing
When it comes to mixing your dough, you have to find a balance. Overmixing the dough can make it flat and tough, while undermixing it might not give the dough the proper structure it needs. Mixing for too long develops the gluten in the flour, which can cause your cookies to spread too much and turn out to be flat. All you have to do is mix all the ingredients until they are well combined. There is no need to overdo it.
Temperature
Finally, your oven temperature could also be a factor. If your oven is too cool, your cookies might spread out too much before it has the time to set. On the other hand, if your oven is too hot, your cookies might spread too quickly and burn before they have a proper chance to rise. Just make sure your oven is preheated to the right temperature before putting your cookie dough in.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, baking cookies isn’t a perfect science. Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to get the right balance. But over time you’ll get the hang of it.
