The 5 Core Cookie Baking Steps

Baking is a science, so it stands to reason that exact measurements are important.

• We provide weights for dry ingredients and strongly recommend you weigh your ingredients on a digital kitchen scale.

• If you must measure your dry ingredients by volume, you can increase your accuracy by employing the dip-and-sweep method. Simply dip the measuring cup into the flour, sugar, or other dry ingredient, and sweep away the excess with a straight-edge object such as the back of a butter knife.

• For wet ingredients, we use a liquid measuring cup. Set the cup on a level surface, bend down and read the bottom of the concave arc at the liquid’s surface, known as the meniscus line, at eye level.

• For sticky ingredients, we recommend using an adjustable measuring cup. If you don’t own one, spray a dry measuring cup with vegetable oil spray before filling it.

Whether mixed by hand, a mixer, or in a food processor, the way you combine your ingredients is as important as the ingredients themselves.

• Creaming is one of the most common mixing methods, where butter and sugar are mixed in a stand mixer until pale and fluffy. This approach makes butter malleable, which allows other ingredients to blend in easily, and the tiny sugar crystals act like extra beaters, helping to incorporate air into the butter as it is creamed. The tiny air pockets expand during baking, giving the cookie lift and forming its crumb.

• Reverse creaming is used for tender but sturdy cookies, with minimal rise and flat tops, like holiday cookies that get decorated. This process starts with softened butter beaten into the dry ingredients. The butter coats the flour particles, therefore minimizing gluten development and yielding a tender, fine crumb. Since the butter isn’t beaten with the sugar, less air is incorporated, which translates into less rise and a sturdier cookie.

• Mixing by hand is called for when a cookie recipe includes melted butter. The goal is to create a very chewy cookie. Once the butter is melted, the water in it can more freely interact with the flour to develop gluten, giving the cookie good chew. Vigorously mixing ingredients together in a bowl facilitates this process and doesn’t incorporate air the way a stand mixer does.

Once your dough is ready, you’ll portion off a measurement of dough according to the recipe and roll it between your hands to form a ball. Once formed, space them evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet as this is important to prevent them spreading into one another as they bake, and ensures even baking. Even spacing is important for slice-and-bake cookies, as well as cutout cookies.

Not as simple as setting the temperature and popping the tray in, there are three things to consider when baking your cookies.

• What pan to use - we bake all cookies on a sturdy rimmed baking sheet. Rimless cookie sheets will work; however, cookies will brown more quickly and can finish baking several minutes before those on a rimmed pan. This is because heat rises from the element at the bottom of your oven and circulates in currents to warm the entire chamber. A rimmed baking sheet's raised edges divert hot-air currents from the cookies to the top of the oven. A rimless sheet allows hot air to immediately sweep over the cookies.

• What rack to bake on - When baking just one sheet at a time, we nearly always bake them on the middle rack. When we're baking two sheets at a time, we use the upper-middle and lower-middle racks. The middle of the oven is always a safe bet; the closer to the bottom of the oven, the browner the bottoms of your cookies will be relative to the tops.

• How to avoid uneven baking - baking two trays of cookies at a time may be convenient, but the cookies on the top tray are often browner around the edges than the ones on the bottom tray. Rotate and switch the trays halfway through baking for evenly baked cookies

Different cookies require different cooling methods to ensure they set up properly. Many drop cookies require a short rest on the baking sheet, typically 5 to 10 minutes, until they are firm enough to move. Moving them to the cooling rack allows air to circulate around them so they finish cooling evenly.