Oatmeal Lace Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade oatmeal cookies hard? ›

Not Enough Moisture: Ensure you're using the right amount of butter in your recipe and that it's at the correct temperature (softened not melted) when you start. Oatmeal cookies require more moisture to stay soft. Consider adding an extra egg yolk or a touch of milk to your dough to enhance moisture content.

Try using baking powder instead of baking soda. Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder. Caution: This could result in an unwanted flavor shift.

The number one way to keep your cookies soft is to not over-bake them. Over-baked cookies will be dry, hard, and crumbly. Secondly, always store your cookies in an air-tight container. They should stay soft for up to 3 days.

OVEN IS TOO HOT

If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

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.

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.

A low proportion of sugar relative to flour reduces spread, keeping the cookies thick. A high proportion of mix-ins helps thicken the dough.

In this series of photos, you can see that as we increase the baking powder, the cookies tend to rise a little more, but only to a certain point. Eventually, the reaction is so strong and violent that it will actually cause those air pockets to rupture and collapse, delivering a denser, squatter cookie.

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. "The colder and more solid the fat is, the less the cookie will spread," says food stylist and recipe developer Caitlin Haught Brown.

What is the secret to chewy 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.

One of the most common reasons why cookies didn't spread out in the oven is because you added too much flour. Cookies rely on the perfect ratio of butter to flour in order to spread just the right amount when baked. It's very easy to over measure flour when using cup measurements.

Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets. Keep it cool to start with. How to Fix it: If too-soft butter was the culprit, try refrigerating cookie dough for 1 to 2 hours before baking. If too-little flour was the issue, try adding an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour to the dough.

Quaker® Old Fashioned Oats are whole oats that are rolled to flatten them. Quaker® Steel Cut Oats are whole oats that have not been rolled into flakes. Instead, they are cut approximately into thirds. Quick Quaker® Oats are simply cut into slightly smaller pieces so they cook faster.

Old fashioned oats give baked goods more texture but take longer to cook, which is why some recipes call specifically for quick oats. Quick cook oats are processed more, so they don't have to cook as long. In many cases, you can use the two interchangeably.

Here's what you need to do: Snuggle ¼ slice of bread per dozen cookies into the bottom of the container (use plain white bread, since it won't transmit any flavors). Allow to let sit covered for 24 hours, and replace the bread as needed, every time it starts to get stale.

Keep Them Sealed

The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here's a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.

Under-Bake Your Cookies

Ever accidentally bake a batch of cookies for too long, only to find that they were crunchy and hard instead of soft and chewy? The opposite goes for under-baking. Pull your cookies out of the oven a minute or two early (while the centers are still gooey).

Overmixing develops the gluten in the flour, which can produce tough cookies. If the recipe doesn't call for an electric mixer, mix in dry ingredients using a wooden spoon.