Cookie Troubleshooting Guide

Everyone says cookies are the easiest thing to bake. They’re wrong.

Cookies are finicky little beasts. Small things that don’t affect normal baking a lot, like the exact temperature of your oven or the size of your eggs, can be the difference between cookies that are flat and sad or compact and chewy. Everyone has a different kitchen setup—different ovens, different pans, different ways of lining the pans. And all of that has a large impact on how the cookies turn out. Recipes try to be precise, but they were developed in a test kitchen using equipment that’s different from yours, and they were perfected in that environment. To get cookies to turn out right in your home kitchen will probably take a little adjusting, but no one tells you to expect that.

I’ve been there. I’ve failed a lot while developing my Christmas cookie recipes, and I’ve done an obsessive amount of research to figure out why. Today I’ll walk you through how and why your cookies aren’t working so that you can troubleshoot and adapt recipes for your home.

Start here

Bake a single test cookie first. This allows you to diagnose problems and address them before ruining a whole batch of dough. Fully bake the test cookie in the middle rack of the oven until the edges are golden brown and set. Let it cool on the sheet for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Once it’s fully cool, taste it. If you have an issue, scroll to the appropriate section of this guide, make an adjustment, and test again until things come out right. It’s time-consuming, but once you dial in a particular kind of cookie in your kitchen, you can make it that way every time with the assurance it will turn out well.

Too much spreading

Ah, the classic issue. The thing that causes even-keeled people to want to pull their hair out by the roots and set the house on fire out of spite. Two pieces of good news: this is a fixable problem, and it may not be you—it might be the recipe.

Are you baking two trays of cookies at once? Try one at a time and put the sheet pan on the middle rack. This gets more heat to the bottoms so they set faster.

Did you use room temperature butter? It should be soft enough to press a finger into it (with some resistance) and leave a deep indentation, but it shouldn’t be greasy, melty, or oily.

Check your technique. Make sure you cream the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment of your mixer for a good 3–5 minutes, until the mixture has paled by several shades and is fluffy. (Check out this King Arthur article for an in-depth treatment of creaming.) The air you incorporate while creaming helps cookies rise up instead of spread out when baking.

Is your oven accurate? Get a thermometer and check the temperature when it says it’s preheated. If the oven isn’t hot enough, it won’t set the cookie bottoms before the spreading happens.

Is your baking soda out of date? Fresh (purchased within six months) makes a world of difference. This encourages cookies to rise upward instead of spreading outward.

Try baking your cookies on Silpat or directly on the pan (though you risk some sticking with the latter option). Both will result in more heat getting to the bottom of your cookies to set them before they can spread too much.

If nothing has worked, it’s the recipe. Add ¼ c of flour at a time and keep baking test cookies until they come out right.

Not enough spreading

Are you using a kitchen scale? You usually overshoot if you measure flour by volume. Switch to a scale and use the 125g = 1 c flour ratio for your recipes.

Try a lighter-colored pan. Or a thicker-bottomed pan. Or bake two sheets of cookies at once, swapping oven racks halfway through baking.

If these don’t work, add 2 tbsp melted butter to the dough and bake another test cookie. Repeat as necessary until it comes out right.

Chocolate chip cookie troubles

These are a beast all their own, and I have a few tips specific to them.

Are you using chopped up chocolate instead of chips? Pure chocolate melts and spreads in the oven; chips are designed to keep their shape. Expect extra spreading with a bar of chocolate and add extra flour to your recipe, ¼ c at a time, until your test cookie comes out right.

Did you leave the nuts out? They’re shockingly important to the cookies’ structure. Add ½ c flour for every 1 c nuts you omit. Or swap that 1 c nuts for 1 c dried fruit instead.

Cakey or dry cookies

Make sure the eggs are the size your recipe calls for. Too many of them or eggs that are too large can give your cookies a cakey texture.

Check your oven temperature. If the edges of your cookies aren’t browning well by the end of the recommended bake time, the oven is probably too cool. Up the temperature by 25 degrees.

Dense, tough cookies

How long do you mix your dough after adding the flour? Mix just until the flour is incorporated and the dough is no longer streaky. Do the bare minimum of mixing after you add any chips or nuts or add-ins, or mix chips in by hand with a wooden spoon.

Dark edges and undercooked middles

Your oven is probably too hot. Lower the temperature by 25 degrees.

It could also be your pan. Choose a pan that’s a lighter shade in color, like a medium or lighter gray. A dark pan (think black from layers of burnt oil) will burn the bottoms before the centers are set.

Should I chill my dough?

If you’re baking shortbreads or sugar cookies, yes. If you’re baking most other kinds of cookies, don’t bother.

Shortbreads and sugar cookies have really high percentages of butter in the dough, so chilling makes a big difference in final shape. That cold butter will turn right to steam in the oven instead of melting into a pool.

Chocolate chip cookies, molasses cookies, thumbprints, snickerdoodles, and others with a lower butter ratio aren’t affected as much by this step. If your recipe calls for chilling, do it, but too much spreading is probably caused by another factor as well.

Still stumped?

I’d love to help! If this post didn’t answer your cookie question, let me know, and I’ll get back to you with advice. Reply to this email, comment below, or DM me on Instagram. It would totally make my day if you reached out!