I hear people asking how to make the perfect cookie and I thought I’d share five basic tips with you.  Great results depend on what you want from a cookie, but having these five tips in your arsenal will make your baking a lot more enjoyable.  Read them, learn them, and then go forth and conquer!  

1.  Know Thy Oven

I have a convection oven in this house and when we moved in, I was excited to try it out.  I had heard that they bake quicker and heat more evenly.  When I first started baking with it, I made the classic mistake of setting the heat and timer and walking away.  I burned everything for two months. 

I finally learned to set it 25 degrees cooler and take the time down about 10 minutes for every hour.

Your oven may be “hot” or “cool.”  The only way to find out is to experiment.  Make a small batch of easy cookies (my Snickerdoodles are a fast recipe to try) and preheat your oven to the recommended temperature.  Halfway through the specified time, turn on the light and examine the cookies.  (Or if your door is grimy like mine, open it and look at them.)  Are they goopy and starting to spread?  Right on.  Are they getting firm around the edges?  If they look too far along, watch them carefully to decide how much time to take off the next batch. 

When the cookies come out of the oven, check them again.  Are they too done?  Try reducing the heat by 25 degrees and the time by 2-minute increments until you find the right mix.  Too raw?  Increase the heat and/or time by the same amounts.  I promise that a little experimentation will make baking with your oven a lot easier.

2.  Liquid or Dry?

Use the right measuring cups for the right ingredients.  Always measure dry ingredients in the dry measures (the ones without a pouring spout).   Level off the top with a knife.  Liquid cups are used for convenience in pouring and make spills less common.  But adding a cup of flour from a liquid cup will give you the wrong amount for your recipe.  Use a dry measure.  It makes a world of difference.

3.  Use the right tools.

What do you really need to bake cookies? 

Measuring cups, quality ingredients, spoons, baking pans and an oven are the only requirements.  But some of my favorite tools come in really handy: an electric beater or kitchen mixer, 8-inch strainers or sifters, rolling pins, silicone spatulas, a microwave, and pots and pans. 

The obvious necessity is a cookie sheet.  A quality cookie sheet will give you some major bang for your buck.  The color needs to be light (not dark and non-stick) and it should feel heavy.  Aluminum conducts heat very well for sugary batter and doesn’t warp at high temperatures, although there are mixtures of stainless steel and aluminum.  Insulated sheets will extend the baking time – I don’t suggest them.  Get an aluminum sheet with one side for grabbing and open ends to allow air to circulate around the cookies and bake the dough evenly.   (If you do get this pan, make sure you keep cookies at least 2 inches away from the edge or you’ll be cleaning drips off your oven!)

4.  Read the instructions twice.

Read once just to find out what you need.  Pull the ingredients out to see if you have everything required.  (That means the tools, too.)

Now read through the recipe again and take note of the timing.  Does one part of the dough need to be mixed while another part is melting?  Do you need to chill the dough for a few hours?  Can you do some of the preparation overnight? 

If you’re really in a hurry, reading the recipe twice can save you from making time-consuming mistakes.  Read and repeat.

5.  It’s not over till the Fat Lady sings.

You’ve seen me rhapsodize about butter in my Snickerdoodle post.  Often, we crave something soft and chewy (or crisp and crunchy) before we decide what flavor and spice it should be.  Fat controls the texture.  It is the one part of cookies that I am very picky about.  A fat needs to be the right temperature to be the right consistency, and it depends a lot of the type used and what state it is in when it is mixed and incorporated with the other ingredients.  Pay attention to your fats! 

The epitome of fat in baking is butter.  Use only butter and you’ll be happier.  But if you have to substitute oils or shortenings, make sure you pay attention: oils are liquid fats.  They can’t be creamed to hold air and make fluffy batter like butter and shortenings can.  Oil makes the starch in flour moist much more quickly than butter does and the dough becomes soft and difficult to handle. 

Butter and fats deserve a post all to themselves, and it’s a topic we’ll address in the future.  For now, stick to butter (haha) and try to keep it firm.  Room temperature can be misleading – your house is probably a different temperature and altitude than mine.  What you want to do is see if you can get a slight impression in the butter.  If it has started to melt, the milk separates from the fat and you will have to add more flour or chill your dough.  If the butter is too hard, it’s difficult to mix with the other ingredients and you won’t get a smooth cookie.  When you work with butter, remember the Rule of Thumb: Smooth and silky, with a slight thumbprint when you press on it.

Happy baking!