Oatmeal Lace Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade oatmeal cookies hard? ›

Not Enough Moisture: Ensure you're using the right amount of butter in your recipe and that it's at the correct temperature (softened not melted) when you start. Oatmeal cookies require more moisture to stay soft. Consider adding an extra egg yolk or a touch of milk to your dough to enhance moisture content.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.

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.

One of the most common reasons why cookies didn't spread out in the oven is because you added too much flour. Cookies rely on the perfect ratio of butter to flour in order to spread just the right amount when baked.

If you enjoy your cookies soft and chewy, chances are likely the recipe contains a common ingredient that serves a very specific purpose. No, it's not granulated sugar, nor the butter. It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch.

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.

The bread/apple trick

Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.

Also, underbaking them by a minute or 2 will help them retain a dense, chewy bite, explains Jenny McCoy, pastry baking arts chef-instructor at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York. Adding more moisture to your dough in the form of extra butter, egg yolks, or brown sugar will make your cookies even softer.

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 happens if too much butter is in cookies? ›

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

Using too much flour will make your cookies too cakey, so try reducing the flour amount by two tablespoons. Avoid using cake flour instead; try a mix of all-purpose flour and bread flour for a more dense and chewy texture. Using too much baking powder. According to the science geeks at Serious Eats—we love you!

Warm cookie sheets cause the fat in the dough to melt. As a result, cookies start to spread before they even get into the oven. Allow cookie sheets to cool completely before baking additional cookies.

Here's what you need to do: Snuggle ¼ slice of bread per dozen cookies into the bottom of the container (use plain white bread, since it won't transmit any flavors). Allow to let sit covered for 24 hours, and replace the bread as needed, every time it starts to get stale.

There are two tricks to keeping cookies soft, and they are so simple and obvious you might be doing them already, but hear me out: Don't overbake your cookies, and store them in an airtight container. That's it!

Keep Them Sealed

The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here's a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.

Overmixing develops the gluten in the flour, which can produce tough cookies. If the recipe doesn't call for an electric mixer, mix in dry ingredients using a wooden spoon.