Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies Recipe - The Recipe Rebel (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.

If you use too much butter, the cookies will end up flat and greasy. And if you use too little flour, the amount of butter and sugar will be proportionally too high, meaning the cookies will spread for the aforementioned reasons.

Adding too many eggs can result in gummy, cake-like cookies. Adding too few eggs can result in dry, crumbly cookies.

insufficient baking soda: in cookie doughs, baking soda tends to promote spreading and if you omit it, your cookies may be thicker than anticipated.

Cornstarch Is The Secret To Soft And Chewy Cookies.

OVEN IS TOO HOT

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.

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.

There are a few things you can do to add liquid to your cookie dough if it is too dry and crumbly. One option is to add milk, water, or another liquid until the dough is the right consistency. You can also try adding melted butter or shortening. If your dough is still too dry, you may need to add more flour.

*Sometimes, but not always, the natural chlorophyll in sunflower seeds reacts with baking soda, causing a green color inside the cookies after they cool. This is completely harmless! Depending on the recipe you can reduce baking soda by about one third or a splash of lemon juice may help prevent any “greening”.

How to Tell When Oatmeal Cookies Are Done. Many drop cookie recipes, including oatmeal cookies, specify baking until the edges are golden or light brown; often, the recipe also specifies that centers should appear set (not jiggly and raw). In these cases, you can usually tell by simply taking a look at the cookies.

What makes oatmeal cookies spread too much? ›

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.

To fix this, refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes to firm up the butter. For cookies that don't spread enough and remain flat, try using slightly softened butter instead of fully softened or melted butter. Measure flour accurately: To get the right balance of ingredients, it's important to measure flour accurately.

There are several reasons why the cookies may have become dry and crumbly but the two most likely are that either the cookies were baked for too long or too much flour was added to the dough. The cookie should be baked only until the edges are slightly golden and the top looks a little wrinkled.

Baking soda

When added to dough, baking soda releases a carbon dioxide gas which helps leaven the dough, creating a soft, fluffy cookie. Baking soda is generally used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, sour cream or citrus.

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.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.