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.”

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

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.

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.

But one unexpected error bakers can make is adding too much of a good thing, butter. Although butter generally makes it all better, bakers who go overboard with it are dooming their cookies to a greasy and crumbly texture.

Creaming softened butter and sugar together incorporates air into the dough, helping cookies rise, puff up, and become lighter as they bake.

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.

“The metal sides acts as a heat conductor and those cookies placed close to the edge can over bake because they bake faster than those placed in the middle of the baking sheet,” said Usher. “Baking on the bottom of the pan can help prevent this from happening.”

Can you beat cookie dough too long? ›

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.

Eggs promote puffiness and spreading in cookies, while also holding the cookie together during baking. The height and texture of the final product is determined by how much egg is incorporated into the batter. Substituting ingredients can make or break a recipe.

In excess amounts, it sucks up the moisture from other ingredients like milk, eggs, and butter, leaving you with a drier, fluffier cookie whose texture feels almost bread-like. And if you've ever ended up with cookies that look like hard scoops of brown ice cream, you know the problem all too well.

Ingredients to Keep Cookies Soft

Butter is more than 15% water, so it plays a role in making cookies soft by adding water and fat, which contributes flavor and tenderness. Melting the butter you're using can make the cookie softer.