Soft Amish Sugar Cookies - Simple Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to soft cookies? ›

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.

If you add too much flour, your cookies won't spread at all and won't be soft or chewy. Baking powder – This gives the sugar cookies lift, without adding too much spread or browning.

The very best sugar cookies are soft and tender. → Follow this tip: One of the keys to great sugar cookies is mixing the dry ingredients only until they're just incorporated, and not a second longer. Once the dry ingredients are added, less mixing equals more tender cookies.

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.

Softened butter and melted butter are not the same. Using melted butter will change the texture of whatever you're baking. If you only want the butter to soften for spreading, microwave it on the Defrost setting (30%) in 5-second increments until it's softened as desired.

Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate and helps to make the cookie dough firmer. Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies.

Which One Should I Use in Cookies? Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren't as flavorful.

Bake cookies on parchment paper: Sometimes greasing a baking sheet can cause sugar cookies to spread. Instead, use parchment paper to prevent sticking and help the cookies keep their shape. Don't let the dough get warm. Notice the dough needs to be chilled for at least 2 hours.

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.

Why did my sugar cookies get hard? ›

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.

Stick with room temp

“If you store cookies in the fridge, they will dry out,” Amanda says. The dry, cold air sucks the moisture right out of them. Instead, keep your cookies at room temperature, or freeze them for later.

To keep it simple, cookie recipes that contain a lot of butter, brown sugar or egg yolks are going to yield soft and chewy cookies, because those ingredients add moisture and retain it for a longer amount of time.

Bread releases moisture into the air, while sugar (present in large quantities in cookies), absorbs moisture out of the air. Don't have any white bread? Use a slice of apple instead. Just slip a wedge in with your cookies, cover, and let sit overnight.

Cookies begin losing moisture through evaporation from the moment that they come out of the oven. So it's totally normal for them to harden up a bit. Yet, this is why you need to store them in an airtight container once they completely cool or they will continue to lose moisture.

Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.