6 Reasons Why Your Cookies are Spreading (2024)

Description

Even if you have a recipe that's always worked for you, humidity, room temperature, or even switching ingredient brands can alter how your cookies behave in the oven. Here, our test kitchen cooks share the reasons our cookies sometimes misbehave.

  1. Room Temperature Butter

    If it's too soft, it will melt faster in the oven and ultimately spread out. Next time, allow the butter to soften at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes or until it gives slightly when pressed with a spoon.

  2. Excess Sugar and Fat

    Measuring is key in baking. If your cookie contains excess sugar or fat, it will spread while baking. If your first batch of cookies spreads, try adding a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken the remaining dough.

  3. Mixing Butter & Sugar

    Creaming is the act of mixing butter and sugar to incorporate air bubbles into the butter, creating a light and fluffy cookie. If your butter is under mixed, it won't have the air pockets to hold it's shape. If it's over-mixed, the air pockets decrease in size and are unable to hold their shape in the oven—causing your cookies to spread. It's best to cream butter and sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes.

  4. Dough is Too Warm

    Storing your dough in the fridge helps to harden the fat and prevent your cookies from spreading. Allow it to chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

  5. Greased Cookie Sheets

    Most cookie doughs have enough fat in them to prevent them from sticking to the pan. Adding grease to the pan can cause them to spread even more. However, if you're concerned about cookies sticking to the sheet, try the baking spray that contains flour.

  6. Warm Cookie Sheets

    6 Reasons Why Your Cookies are Spreading (1)

    If you're batch baking your cookies, make sure you're placing cookie dough on cooled cookie sheets. If the cookie sheets are too warm, they can cause the cookies to spread.

  7. Oven Temperature

    Oven temperature is crucial to perfectly baked cookies. If your oven temperature is too low, it can cause your cookies to spread, yielding thin, tough cookies.

  8. The Test Cookie

    If you're worried about your cookies spreading, don't be afraid to do a test cookie. Just bake one at first. This helps to ensure that your cookies will turn out just the way you want them.

6 Reasons Why Your Cookies are Spreading (2024)

FAQs

6 Reasons Why Your Cookies are Spreading? ›

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.

What causes cookies to spread? ›

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.

What are 6 factors that determine the spread of a cookie? ›

What are the 6 factors that determine the spread of a cookie? Flour, sugar, liquid, baking soda, type of fat, and baking temperature.

How do I make sure my cookies spread? ›

Higher sugar content will lead to more spread, while lower sugar content will result in less spread. Experimenting with different sugar ratios can help you achieve the desired cookie spread. Flour type and amount: The type and amount of flour used in your cookie dough can also impact the spread.

What makes cookies wider? ›

Its size depends on how quickly the dough spreads out as the butter melts in the oven. If you start off with melted butter in the raw dough — instead of cold butter chunks — the dough is immediately wetter and will spread out faster. The result is a flatter, wider cookie.

Why are my cookies puffy and cakey? ›

Q: Why are my cookies so puffy and cakey? Whipping too much air into the dough. That fluffy texture you want in a cake results from beating a lot of air into the room temperature butter and sugar, and it does the same for cookies. So don't overdo it when you're creaming together the butter and sugar.

What makes a chewy cookie? ›

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

What factors affect a cookie? ›

Have you ever baked cookies that were too hard, too soft or didn't taste the way they should? The ingredients you used could be the culprit – using different sugars, melted butter, baking powder or baking soda can alter a cookie's texture and taste.

What is spread factor in cookies? ›

The spread factor is obtained by dividing the width in mm by the thickness in mm of a baked round cookie whose raw dough dimensions are standardized to 7 mm in thickness and 60 mm in diameter.

What are the 6 methods for making cookies? ›

The stiffness and the method of handling the dough make it convenient to classify cookies into six basic types: drop, bar, rolled, refrigerator, pressed and molded. The dough for bar cookies and drop cookies is softer than the dough for the other types of cookies.

What makes cookies fluffy and not flat? ›

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.

Why is my cookie soft? ›

The cookies became soften when you left overtime in open atmosphere because some of the ingredients are hygroscopic(absorb atmospheric moisture fastly) in nature such as sugar,smp etc. so when you bake the cookies then give 1.5 times the baking time for cooling then pack cookies in air tight container for future use.

What causes cookies to spread more? ›

Excess Sugar and Fat

Measuring is key in baking. If your cookie contains excess sugar or fat, it will spread while baking. If your first batch of cookies spreads, try adding a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken the remaining dough.

What makes cookies cakey vs chewy? ›

The only difference between crisp and cakey chocolate chip cookies is a slight modification to the recipe measurements. Simply adjust the amounts of butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Begin by measuring out the butter and sugar amounts for your favorite cookie texture, then proceed with the rest of the recipe below.

How to get a thicker cookie? ›

Cover the baking tray with clingfilm and freeze the cookie dough balls for at least 90 minutes or up to 48 hours for best results. The longer you leave them, the thicker your cookies will be.

How to stop cut out cookies from spreading? ›

Always pop the cut cookies back into the freezer for a few minutes until solid again. From there you can put them straight into the oven. Even better is that once frozen you can re wrap your pre-cut cookies in cling film and place in an air tight container and keep them this way already pre-cut and ready to go!

Why don't my cookies flatten out? ›

The most common culprit behind non-spreading cookies is too much flour. This may seem counterintuitive—after all, isn't flour a key ingredient in baking? Yes, but if you add too much flour, your cookies won't spread as they bake.

How to make cookies thick and not flat? ›

That being said, some variables I've noticed:
  1. Refrigerate the dough. ...
  2. Don't flatten the cookie. ...
  3. Substitute out oil and substitute in butter or shortening. ...
  4. Whip your butter and sugar to aerate it. ...
  5. Use baking powder or baking soda+acid (typically brown sugar is used). ...
  6. Add more dry ingredients.
Jan 7, 2021

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