Melt in your mouth orange vanilla cookies recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making cookies soft? ›

“Cornstarch is a game changer for cookie baking,” confirms Brian Hart Hoffman, editor in chief of Bake from Scratch. “You can count on [it for] a softer and more tender crumb.”

Flour adds fluff and texture to the cookies. 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.

Overmixing your batter can lead to runny cookies.

I mixed the batter more than I should have both during the creaming stage of the recipe and after adding the flour. As a result, the cookies came out light and airy, and I was able to taste the butter more prominently in this batch than in others.

Eggs, particularly egg yolks. Eggs work to make your cookies soft in two ways: They add a ton of moisture, and the proteins add structure that prevents spreading. Cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. Low in protein and high in moisture, cake flour is used to leaven all sorts of baked goods.

Use Melted Butter

If the goal is a chewy cookie, then you absolutely need to be using melted butter. The technique of creaming softened butter and sugar together is often used for making cakes. And for good reason! The process of creaming incorporates air into the butter which results in a more airy and cakey cookie.

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.

What does cornstarch do in cookies? Like in this case, when the amount of cornstarch is higher than the flour, the texture of the cookies will get more crumbly, favoring that melt-in-the-mouth texture that we all love.

3: Freeze the cookie dough before baking

Frozen cookie dough = less spread = thick cookies!!! I recommend at least 90 minutes (enough time to tidy up, make a cuppa and watch an episode of your favourite series). However, the longer you leave the cookie dough, the thicker your cookies will be. 24-48 hours is ideal!

It depends on your baking style and what's important to you. Convection is going to be better at making sure the cookies bake evenly, reducing or even eliminating the need to rotate your cookies relative to the heating element. The fan in a convection oven creates a drier environment which is good for browning.

Why bake cookies on upside down pan? ›

Cookbook author Julia Usher also recommends flipping a sheet pan upside-down to bake cookies evenly. Usher explains that when you bake cookies on the "right" side of the pan, "The metal sides act as a heat conductor, and those cookies placed close to the edge can overbake because they bake faster".

Classic signs of a cookie with too much butter include crispy-bordering-on-burnt edges, a greasy surface, an excessively brittle texture, and a predominantly buttery flavor that overpowers the other caramel and chocolate notes.

Overmixing the dough: Overmixing can lead to tough and dense cookies. It's essential to mix the ingredients just until they come together to avoid developing too much gluten.

Once dry ingredients have been added, don't beat vigorously or overmix. Overmixing can result in tough cookies.

Add baking powder or baking soda

A lot of cookie recipes don't include baking powder but it's what makes cookies soft and fluffy. However, baking powder also makes the cookies cakier so if you prefer chewy cookies, use baking soda instead of baking powder.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.