- Hey, I'm John Kanell today.
Today on Preppy Kitchen. I'm walking you through
the top 10 most common cookie-baking mistakes
that you might be making at home.
So let's get started.
(upbeat music)
Coming in at number 10, using expired baking soda
and baking powder.
You might think oh, this is just like a powder.
Like, it's white powder. It doesn't go bad.
You sure check your milk state to make sure
that isn't rancid before you use it
in any kind of cookie or cake recipe.
But these guys are super-important.
This has been hanging out in my pantry for a little bit.
It expires in seven days.
Even if you think like oh, it's not that old,
check your dates because it might've been hanging out.
And if it did, your cookies won't rise.
They won't have that same beautiful texture.
And they're gonna be kinda like flat and sad,
which is not what you want.
Check those expiration dates.
And by the way, if it's old, don't throw it out.
This is great for cleaning things.
Coming in at number nine, swapping out
or leaving out certain ingredients.
Let's say your recipe calls for peanut butter.
You're making amazing peanut butter cookies
and the recipe says no stir or creamy peanut butter.
But you like natural peanut butter,
the kind of you have to stir in the oil
and make it just right.
This has a little bit of sugar. It has a little bit of salt.
And your recipe was developed for that much sugar,
that much salt, and a creamy peanut butter
that holds everything together almost like an egg.
If you're using the natural peanut butter,
your cookies could be a little bit oily
and they could spread out too much,
be like kind of beh or they could be crumbly
and not spread enough, depending on how well
you stirred that peanut butter.
Peanut butter's one example but by the way,
the main culprit is flours.
Sometimes you might only have self-rising flour
or if you wanna use whole grain flour
because it's a little bit healthier,
that might make your cookie tough
and not like melt-in-your-mouth amazing,
so just be careful.
Use what your recipe requires.
But if you wanna use an ingredient
like coconut flour, that's fine.
Just find coconut flour cookies and that recipe
will be developed for this ingredient
and it'll be delicious and amazing.
Coming in at number eight, uneven baking for your cookies.
Most recipes require that you cook
multiple trays of cookies.
So many delicious cookies. Hello, it's a good thing.
But there's a sweet spot in your oven for cookies,
and that's in the center rack,
for almost every single recipe.
When I'm making cookies at home,
I just cook one tray of cookies at a time.
The other one's hanging out in the fridge.
If you're baking two trays of cookies at the same time,
the bottom ones are gonna get burnt.
The top ones will be under-done.
So they need to be swapped out halfway through.
Also, don't place 'em all the way forward
or all the way back.
Really in the center is the best spot for those cookies.
Coming in at number seven, thinking that your cookies suck
because they don't look perfect.
We all know that a cookie that's not as beautiful
will still taste just as good.
Here's the deal, everyone has some food-styling secrets
and this is mine.
Get some round cookie cutters. The bigger, the better.
So you want the cookie cutter to be bigger than your cookie.
Right out of the oven, if it's spread out,
if it's misshapen, just corral it into shape really quick,
little circles, and it'll just nudge the cookie
back into a circle.
And if they spread out and it's too thin,
it'll like re-puff it up just a little bit.
Cookie baking mistake number six,
using the wrong butter or salt.
And these two are related.
First of all, just on a side note,
your butter is usually gonna be room temperature,
not rock hard.
Rock-hard butter just won't mix well
and things are gonna go awry.
But even if your butter is room temperature,
something could be wrong.
If you're using salted butter on your cookie recipe,
you need to reduce the amount of added salt by a third
of a teaspoon per stick or half cup of butter.
Coming in at number five, skimping on your chill time.
Some cookies can go right from the mixing bowl
into the oven.
They have ingredients that are gonna help them
stay together.
Most cookies need some chill time
so those ingredients can set up, meaning the cookies
will maintain their shape in the oven just long enough
so that the flour can then bake, create a structure,
hold it together, and you have a chewy or cakey
or just delicious melt-in-your-mouth cookie.
If you don't do that, what happens is that they just melt
in the oven and you have a big puddle.
It's happened to all of us.
And don't learn the hard way.
Just follow the recipe and use
the appropriate amount of chill time.
Coming in at number four, not giving
your cookies room to grow.
Here's the deal.
Your cookies are going to spread when they bake.
You wanna give them room to expand without touching.
But that's not the only reason why.
Air is circulating in your oven between those cookies.
And if they're too crowded, they're gonna under-bake
slightly where the air isn't circulating.
So give them room to grow. They'll bake evenly.
They'll be uniform, delicious, and individual,
not one giant glom of cookie.
Baking mistake number three, raising cookie dough
in a big lump.
I love having extra cookie dough hanging out in my freezer.
Yes, come over, you can bake up some cookies
in a flash and it's amazing.
But you know what sucks?
Having a big lump of this that's frozen.
I can't scoop it out.
You have to wait a long time for it to defrost.
And then it's still pretty hard
so you're gonna sprain a muscle.
It just does not cool.
Instead, before you freeze your cookie dough, scoop it out,
plop it onto a baking sheet, and freeze that.
Then you pop those frozen cookie balls into a freezer bag
and now they'll keep their shape.
And when you wanna bake some up, pop as many as you want
onto a baking tray and enjoy.
Baking mistake number two, not knowing your oven.
Every oven is a little bit different. Mine's very different.
And I just wanna show you something I bought.
This is an oven thermometer.
If you're ever curious, like, is it a little bit colder
than it should be?
Is it a little bit hot? Is something off today?
This thermometer will let you know what it's like,
if it's really 350, if it's really 375,
and it's gonna help you have reliably amazing cookies.
One more thing, have you ever had like perfect,
perfect, perfect, burnt?
That means your oven has hotspots in it
where it's not heating evenly.
You can find out if your oven has a hotspot
by getting some like cheap white bread and just placing it
on your oven rack, baking it for a few minutes at 350,
and then see oh, is it all uniformly toasted?
It'll let you know what's going on inside of your oven
so you can say like, "Okay, I'm not gonna place a cookie
"right in that center 'cause I know it's gonna burn."
Little things like that can make
your cookies so much better.
Coming in at number one, the top cookie-baking mistake.
And I've said it before. I'm saying it again.
Mismeasuring your ingredients.
This is the prime culprit in doing something to the T
in your mind but the recipe just doesn't come out right.
This guy, which is in every single cookie,
is hard to measure in a measuring cup.
I use a scale. It's accurate every time.
You don't even have to get a fancy one.
Just get like any kitchen scale and it's gonna do
a pretty okay job letting you get perfect cookies.
If you just don't have one and you wanna make
this cookie anyways, here's what you do.
Let's say if I just scoop the flour out
like oh, I'm scooping it out, leveling it off.
164 grams. It should be 120 per cup.
And this would make bready, just like nasty cookies. Uh-uh.
So what you wanna do is fluff the flour up. Fluff it up.
Get lots of air in between each piece of flour
and use a spoon to sprinkle that fluffed flour in.
Sprinkle it in.
It's 126. That's so much closer.
And really it could be a little bit more, a bit less.
Your cookies are gonna be great.
It's just when you add a ton of extra flour,
they're not amazing.
I hope this video showed you what not to do
to make some amazing, delicious cookies.
And if you like this video, check out my cookie playlist.
Bon appetit.