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For better organization and enjoyment (and a delicious product!), follow these ten tips for cookie baking:
- Organize! Clear your work area before you begin, and get out all the ingredients. Put each one away as you use it, so you don't forget what you've used. Rinse bowls and utensils as you go.
- Read the recipe through before you do anything. As you read, check your supply of staples (flour, sugar, butter) and watch for any unusual steps. For example, if the dough has to chill for 12 hours, you should know this before you start, in case you need the cookies by noon today.
- Insist on good fresh ingredients. Spices lose their flavor over time; if you've had them around since last December, replace them. Unsalted ("sweet") butter is preferable to salted; it is usually cleaner, sweeter, and fresher than salted butter.
- If you forget to soften your butter ahead of time, cut the stick(s) into thin pats and place them on a room-temperature plate. Leave in a warmish spot for 10 minutes or so, until the butter yields to gentle finger pressure. It doesn't have to be squishy soft.
- When a recipe calls for toasted nuts (incidentally, that's 8–10 minutes in a 350ºF oven), make sure they're thoroughly cooled before adding them to dough.
- If you don't already own them, buy yourself a couple of good baking sheets. Thin, flimsy sheets don't diffuse heat well or evenly and can result in scorched cookie bottoms. Tinned steel and anodized aluminum are two good material choices that will last.
- Invest in a heavy-duty stainless steel cooling rack that's large enough to hold 2 to 3 dozen cookies.
- Generally speaking, bake only one sheet of cookies at a time, on the center rack. This allows for the most-even baking.
- If you own only one cookie sheet, cool it to room temperature between batches. This prevents the butter from melting out of the dough and puddling up on the sheet.
- As a rule, let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 1 or 2 minutes, just long enough to firm them slightly and make it easier to slide them off the sheet and onto a rack.
- Most cookies ship well. For best results, however, choose a relatively firm or dense type of cookie. Wrap cookies individually in waxed paper and pack them snugly in a tin. Pack the tin inside a bigger box, cushioned on all sides with additional waxed paper. And it never hurts to be nice to the postal clerk!
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Insist on good fresh
Thanks for these important tips.
Greetings,
Sammie.
Silicone baking sheets for
Silicone baking sheets for cookies are THE BOMB !! GET ONE and you will NEVER go back to greasing and/or scrubbing cookie off the baking sheets.
This is true. These are
This is true. These are awesome!!
I have discovered that you
I have discovered that you can actually make your cookies in advance, but not bake them. This works well with firm dough type cookies. I put them on the pan but instead of putting them in the oven I freeze them and then put them into freezer bags. Then I take them out when I am ready to bake them and put them back on the pan and into the oven. Fresh baked cookies but without the mess and stress at the holidays. We make the dough on rainy days during the summer. I also do this with my apple pies. Line the pie plate with foil, then the bottom crust, add the pie filling and top with the second crust, then freeze. Remove the whole thing from the pie plate, wrap well and return to the freezer. When ready to bake, remove all the wrapping, pop it back into the pie plate and bake. Yum!
Along with organization,
Along with organization, consider this tip. I put newspaper under the wire cooling racks. It keeps things more tidy, and you can throw out the paper when you are done.