Gooey Butter Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you make cookies more dense and chewy? ›

Instead, use a whisk to combine the melted butter with the sugar, then proceed with the recipe. When I swapped melted butter in for creamed (aerated room-temperature butter), each batch of cookies (chocolate chip, peanut butter, and sugar) was noticeably denser, with more spread and more chew.

Shortening traps more air bubbles and has a higher melting point than butter, so recipes using shortening tend to produce baked goods with more lift and that hold their shape during baking. Interior texture will also be softer and lighter.

Freeze the dough

This is super important - freeze the dough for at least 1 hour before baking. If they're frozen throughout before being baked, it will take the heat from the oven longer to reach and bake the inside of the cookie, so it'll still be gooey when the outside turns golden and crisp.

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.

Also, because oil is 100% fat, it doesn't react with flour the way butter does (butter contains water). Because of that, your cookies won't be as fluffy. If you're a fan of flat cookies, then using oil is an excellent option. Butter, on the other hand, contains water which helps with leavening the dough.

Different types of sugars affect the texture because they absorb different amounts of water. Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies.

If you want to get the best of both worlds — buttery flavor, but tenderness too — use a combination of butter and shortening. Don't, however, substitute butter with shortening in cookies like shortbreads or sugar cookies, where butter really is a key flavoring.

In cookies, softened butter will result in a cakier and airier cookie than using melted butter. This is due to the fact that softened butter will create air bubbles that expand in the oven during baking. Melted butter will make your cookies delightfully dense on the inside and crisp on the edges.

Why not use melted butter in cookies? ›

If it's too hot, it can cause other ingredients in your recipe to cook prematurely, which can potentially ruin the texture and taste of the final product. It's important to let the melted butter cool to room temperature before using it in a recipe.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.

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.

The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.

Soft – Dough that's “soft” or “runny” can be thickened by adding one or two tablespoons of flour to your mix. This will help keep your batch from “Spreading” and coming out of the oven looking like flat, not-so-cookie-like puddles.

Adjust leavening agents: Baking powder and baking soda are responsible for the rise and structure of cookies. If your cookies are too flat, try slightly increasing these leavening agents. Conversely, if your cookies are overly puffy and then collapse into flatness, it could be due to using too much leavening agent.