What Happens If You Put Too Much Flour in Cookie Dough
What Happens If You Put Too Much Flour In Cookie Dough?
If you add too much flour, you will end up with cookie dough that struggles to hold its shape. Also, if you want to add toppings, the dough will struggle to keepthem inside. The cookie dough will have a consistency that resembles clay. Therefore, it’s going to be crumbly.
The best way to fix dough that has too much flour and is too dry is to simply add more liquid or fat to the mixture and knead. Adding water, milk, eggs, or fat to the dough is important to rehydrate and activate the yeast and is responsible for the consistency of the dough.
That’s right—just by looking at the way your dough sticks to the mixer you can tell whether you have too much flour, not enough flour, or too many eggs. In this case you can counter the imbalance straight away, adding more wet ingredients or more flour until you get the consistency you want.
If you’re measuring your flour by scooping your measuring cup into the bag of flour, you could be using as much as 30 percent extra flour in your dough. That’s going to make your cookies dry and tough.
Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn’t enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.
Why Are My Cookies Flat? 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.
If the cookies that you’re baking are turning out far too puffy, then just flattening out the cookie dough a bit before baking it might work well. You can place a dollop onto a cookie sheet and then flatten it a bit using a spoon or a fork.
There are several reasons why the cookies may have become dry and crumbly but the two most likely are that either the cookies were baked for too long or too much flour was added to the dough. The cookie should be baked only until the edges are slightly golden and the top looks a little wrinkled.
Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.
Eggs: Cookies without eggs are usually flatter and crispier since eggs act as leavening agents. However, it’s the yolks that make cookies chewy, while the whites lead to crunchier cookies.
If your cookie dough is runny, consider whether or not you’ve added in enough flour. Flour absorbs moisture and is what gives cookie dough structure. Not putting in enough flour will result in a runny, too wet to handle cookie dough.
Cookie chemistry: We’re taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that’s soft and chewy all the way through.
If your first batch of cookies bakes flat, try adding 1-2 tablespoons of flour to the remaining dough. Then bake a test cookie before baking the rest or adding a bit more flour. The problem could be your baking sheet. It may have been too hot.
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 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.
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.
How to Make Crispy Cookies. 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.
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.
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.
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.
The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4″–that way, they’ll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.
