When it comes to cooking, sometimes things won’t always go your way. The list of cooking disasters can range from disappointing to inedible, but have no fear! There are some cooking nightmares that you can pull yourself out from.
If you’ve ever made homemade cookies, you’ll quickly understand the trials and tribulations that come with getting the dough just right. If your cookie dough has seen better days, here are some things you can do to fix it.
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How to Fix Crumbly Cookie Dough
There are a few ways to give your cookie dough a new life. One of the first options is to make sure that your dough has enough liquid or fat. Most of the time, crumbly cookie dough is caused by lack of ingredients or just not adding enough of one.
If you feel that this isn’t the case, let’s move onto other things you can do to fix your dough. Skip the automatic mixer and try mixing your dough with your hands. Another option to consider is to let the dough rest after working it, as this can allow the gluten in the dough to rest. If nothing else seems to work, you may need to adjust some other ingredients in your dough to find out what the problem is.
The art of making the perfect cookie dough is never easy, so be to be attentive to when you’re adding ingredients, refrigerating your dough, or getting it prepared to bake it.
Revitalizing your dough can be as simple as adding more milk or eggs to the dough, but there are other ways to give your cookie dough a second chance. The first options are to either add liquid or fat into your dough to give it more moisture.
If you feel like you’ve added the necessarily amount of either ingredient, there are some other steps you can take to fix your cookie dough. One of the first things to try is using your hands to mix the ingredients with your hands.
Using a mixer can sometimes over-mix your dough, which can end up drying out it out which is the problem that we’re wanting to avoid. Using your hands could help to gently mix the ingredients which means that it’s easier to gauge when the dough is being over-mixed or not.
Even after working your dough with your hands, there’s a chance that the dough can still be overworked. If you feel this is the case, you should consider letting your dough rest.
When dough is over-mixed, the gluten in the flour increases which makes the dough harder and harder to work with. Letting the dough rest will soften the gluten and you’ll be able to work with the dough more.
If all else fails, make adjustments to the recipe. While this option isn’t simple, this can be a way to revert any issues that you’ve made to your recipe.
There are a few reasons why your cookies could be raw in the middle. For starters, it could be that you’ve added too much butter into your cookie dough. If you feel that you measured the butter properly, then It could mean that the dough wasn’t cooled for long enough before you’ve baked them.
Room temperature cookie dough or adding too much butter could cause your cookies to spread too much, making them bake faster on the outside, and leaving the inside raw in the middle. For future reference, chill your dough for a minimum of 30 minutes before you bake them.
If you still face the same problem, consider how much butter you add to your cookie dough.
What happens if I don’t chill the dough?
If a recipe calls for you to chill the cookie dough, don’t ignore this step. You should always chill your dough, whether it’s for 30 minutes or 24 hours. Letting your dough cool down not only helps for tastier and chewier cookies, but it also allow the fats in the dough to cool after you’ve worked your dough.
Chilling your dough allows your cookies to hold their texture and expand slowly, so it may be something that you want to consider if you’re looking for the perfect batch of cookies.
Why Are My Cookies So Heavy?
Have you ever brought out a fresh batch of cookies from the oven and realized that they feel extremely heavy? Have you also considered that the culprit may be flour?
Adding too much flour to your cookie dough could result in extremely dense cookies. This isn’t a problem you can fix after the cookies have already been baked, but it’s important to take note how much flour you can add before your cookies start to become too dense to be enjoyed.
Why Are My Cookies Flat?
If your cookies come out the flat and overcooked, then not having enough flour could be your culprit. In turn, this could also mean that your cookies lack enough baking powder as well. The flour added to your cookie dough is supposed to help to give the cookies its depth and substance.
Baking powder, on the other hand, is what gives the cookies the fluffy look to them. If either one of these ingredients are missing, you could end up with a very unflattering pile of cookies.
Why Are My Cookies Greasy?
On some occasions, your cookies can come out very greasy on the bottoms. This could also be a culprit of not having enough flour in your cookies.
Flour is one of the main dry ingredients in your cookie dough, so you can imagine, not adding enough flour to your cookies could lead you with very greasy ones instead. These cookies may also be very flat for the absence of flour as well.
Not adding enough flour could usually be the result of improper measuring but it may also be because you’re modifying the recipe in some way as well.
For example, doubling the cookie recipe could potentially lead to an ingredient or two not being measured correctly. Be sure to be very attentive to the amount of ingredients you add to your cookie dough, and you can avoid having greasy and flat cookies at your dinner table.
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