Why Do Cookies Get Hard? Like all baked treats, cookies are subject to getting stale. Over time, the moisture in the cookies evaporates, leaving them stiff and crumbly. It’s the same thing that happens to breads, muffins, and other baked goods.
If your cookies are rock hard, the site explains that it’s likely due to an over-abundance of sugar, which hardens, darkens, and flattens the cookies as they bake. Bake or Break adds that over-mixing your dough can be the culprit, too. When flour is blended with other ingredients, gluten starts to form.
Here are a few tips for keeping your next batch as pillowy as possible:
- Use brown sugar instead of white sugar.
- Use cake flour.
- Bake at a low temperature.
- Don’t overbake them.
- Eat them the day they’re baked.
- Store them in an airtight container.
- Store them with a piece of white bread.
- Steam them in the microwave.
They go from soft to hard because they start to dry out, and it begins as soon as you pull them from the oven. (Yikes.) Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying.
Cookie jars and other containers that allow air in will make the cookies turn hard. If you don’t have an air tight container, adding a slice of bread will help keep them soft. The bread will turn hard while your cookies stay soft and chewy.
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.
If your cookies look like the first one in the above picture, it’s probably because the dough contained too much sugar leaving your biscuit overly crunchy (as in don’t feed them to grandpa) and dark brown. They probably also got stuck to the baking sheet. Ease up on the sugar in the recipe.
Simply lay the bread at the bottom of the container and pile your cookies on top of it, seal the lid, and wait a few hours. The cookies will soak up all the moisture from the bread and by the next morning, they will taste as good as the day they came out of the oven gooey.
Yes! You can absolutely soften hard or stale cookies. Simply place the cookies in an airtight container, throw a slice of white bread in there with them, and then close the lid overnight. The cookies will absorb the moisture from the bread and you’ll wake up to a deliciously soft dessert.
There are three ways you can soften hard cookies: Heat them, wrap them, or toss in a slice of bread in your cookie jar. It’s time. Let’s go save’em cookies!
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.
(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.
Overworking the dough.
The more you mix and work the dough after adding the flour, the more gluten is formed, which can result in cookies that are tough and hard.
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.
Baking powder is a two-in-one chemical leavening that combines a powdered alkali (sodium bicarbonate) with a powdered acid (originally, tartaric acid). When moistened in a dough or batter, a chemical reaction takes place that produces carbon dioxide gas, inflating cookies, cakes, and pancakes.
: a person who is physically and emotionally strong Don’t worry about her—she’s a tough cookie.
If you find that your cookies are dry and hard to work with because of insufficient moisture, you can add some water to your dough by spritzing a bit of water on your rolled-out cookie dough or giving your dough a splash of cold water before kneading it to incorporate the water.
While overcooked sugar cookies are certainly still palatable, they’ll be hard and crunchy, instead of soft and chewy. → Follow this tip: Pull the cookie sheet from the oven as soon as they’ve set and gained some color, but not too much. They should also look slightly crackled across the center.
Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.
The key is to always use top-quality ingredients as they’ll result in a better cookie; it really is that simple.
- Always use butter.
- Choose the right sugar.
- Choose the right flour.
- Check your flour is in date.
- Choose the right kind of chocolate.
- Cream the butter and sugar.
- Beat in the eggs.
- Fold in the flour.
Because egg yolks contain lecithin and fat, they enrich both the flavor and texture of chocolate chip cookies. If you prefer your cookies light and chewy rather than dense or crispy, adding egg yolks to your dough won’t disappoint.
Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they’re in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
While baking soda will create a coarse, chewy cookie texture, baking powder will produce a light, fine cookie texture. To achieve the best cookie results, use a double-acting baking powder as a substitute.
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.)
And because baking soda also introduces carbon dioxide, or air, to the dough, too much of it will create a cookie that’s cakey rather than chewy.
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.
If you mix (or roll out) cookie dough too much, you’ll add excess air to the dough, causing it to rise and then fall flat in the oven. Overmixing the dough can also lead to excess gluten development, resulting in dense cookies.
One way to tell if your cookie dough is too dry is by how it feels. If the dough is crumbly and does not hold together, then it is likely too dry. Another way to tell is by how the cookies turn out. If the baked cookies turn out dry and crackly, then that is another sign that the dough was too dry.
With less ‘free moisture’ hanging around, the dough has a higher concentration of sugar, and the higher this percentage, the more likely it is that you’ll get cookies with chewy centers and crispy edges.”
Is it OK to use melted butter instead of softened?
You can absolutely use melted butter. Softened butter can also be used. Even chilled butter has its place in some baking recipes.
Acidic brown sugar, on the other hand, speeds gluten formation and egg protein coagulation, so the dough sets quickly, making cookies thick and tender/chewy.
Milk performs many functions in your baked goods. It serves as a source of liquid to hydrate the dry ingredients, adds flavor, supports browning and softens texture.
The role of vanilla in sweet baked goods is like the role of salt on the savory side: it enhances all the other flavors in the recipe. Without it, cookies and cakes tend to taste flat and bland. Forget to add the vanilla once, and you’ll probably never do it again!
Adding eggs, one at a time
They should be added one at a time, each one thoroughly beaten in before the next is added, to allow the creamed butter/sugar mixture to most effectively retain its trapped air. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so all of the butter/sugar mixture is incorporated.
Water vapor escaping from the dough in combination with the carbon dioxide released by our baking soda is ultimately what makes our cookies light and airy.
Most of the time, cookies need to cool for around five to ten minutes before they can be moved and consumed. But it’s not as much of a cut and dry answer as you may think.
Let it sit for long enough—the famous Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie, published in the New York Times, mandates a rest of at least 24 hours and up to 72—and the starches and proteins in the flour begin to break down, leading to more browning and caramelization.