Classic Snowball Cookies Recipe | Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking (2024)

FAQs

How do you make cookies more dense? ›

More egg yolks will give you fudgy, dense cookies. Bringing eggs to room temperature beforehand will add more volume to the dough.

If you skipped the chilling time, this may be why they spread. Another reason is if you place the dough on a hot baking sheet; if you have to reuse baking sheets, let them cool first. To help cookies maintain their shape, try chilling the dough balls for about 10-15 minutes in the freezer before baking.

Take your sheet of cookie dough balls and pop it in the freezer while your oven preheats, for about 20 minutes. This will help prevent excess cookie spreading, so you get nice fat thick cookies. I'd especially recommend this if it's a hot day, or if you're baking multiple trays of cookies one at a time.

It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch. That's right, the flavorless thickening agent used for soups, stews, and curries is also the secret weapon for baked goods that boast a silky-smooth mouthfeel.

Butter keeps cookies fluffy in two ways. First, creaming cold butter with sugar creates tiny, uniform air pockets that will remain in the dough it bakes up. Second, cold butter naturally takes a longer time to melt in the oven.

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.

Not enough liquid

There are a few things you can do if your cookie dough is too dry and crumbly. First, try adding more liquid to the dough. This could be milk, water, or even just additional eggs. If that doesn't work, you could also try melting some butter and adding it to the dough.

Using melted butter (and slightly more flour to counteract the liquid) increases chewiness. Chilling the dough results in a thicker cookie.

Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate and acidic salts. The reaction of these two ingredients results in a cookie that is soft and thick, but slightly harder. The baking powder reaction happens in two stages: The first reaction occurs when you add the powder to the dough.

For soft cookies, use: Brown sugar, as it has a high moisture content and retains moisture better than white sugar. Also, when combined with eggs, brown sugar can prevent spreading (taller cookies tend to be softer and fluffier). Shortening instead of butter or in addition to butter.

What is the secret ingredient to keep cookies soft? ›

There's an ingredient that will make your cookies extra flexible and soft. It's corn syrup. That's it! That, my friend, is the secret ingredient to the best SOFTEST chocolate chip cookies.

1. Cookies. Cornstarch does kind of incredible things to cookies. I mean not only does it give them soft centers, prevents them from spreading, and makes them somewhat thick (in a good way), but it also contributes to the chewiness factor, which, in my opinion, is the most important cookie attribute.

Baking Powder. The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.

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.

Here's how to make cookies flatter

Making chocolate chip cookies spread or thinner in size is as easy as removing the baking soda in the recipe. Baking soda causes the cookie dough to rise when you bake them. Removing the baking soda gives you soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies in the center with crisp edges.

If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.