World's Best Butter Cookies Recipe - Food.com (2024)

FAQs

What is the best butter for butter cookies? ›

Unsalted butter is better suited to baked goods like cookies that are sensitive to salt content and rely on butter's creamy flavor profile, helping ensure that you don't end up with an overly-salty baked good.

Adjust baking time to achieve the cookie texture desired. A little less time produces chewier cookies, a little more time makes them crispy. If you prefer softer cookies, remove them from the oven while they are still slightly under baked. Always check for doneness at the minimum baking time.

An excessive amount of butter makes it where the flour is unable to absorb the combined fat, which causes the cookie to spread too widely and the sugar to carbonize more easily because it's surrounded by too buttery a dough.

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery. This batch of cookies was cakey in the middle, but also airy throughout, with crispy edges. They were yellow and slightly puffy in the middle, and brown and super thin around the perimeter.

All-purpose flour is the most commonly used flour in cookie recipes due to its moderate protein content (usually around 10-12%). This balanced protein level makes it versatile enough to produce both soft and chewy cookies as well as slightly crisp ones.

Most varieties of drinking milk (nonfat, low-fat or whole) may be used interchangeably in baking. If using nonfat or 1 percent milk, you sacrifice richness. If you want to cut some fat in your baking, it's best to use 2 percent. Drinking milk generally comes in half-pint, pint, quart, half-gallon and gallon containers.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

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.

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

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 does brown sugar do in cookies? ›

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

Baking powder is likely your best bet if you are in the mood for a light, fluffy cookie. However, when the craving hits for something chewier and denser, like chocolate chip cookies, reach for that box of baking soda to create your perfect batch.

Too much moisture: Excess moisture, either from ingredients like eggs or butter, can result in soft cookies. Be precise with ingredient measurements. Butter temperature: Using overly soft or melted butter can lead to softer cookies. Ensure your butter is at the right temperature specified in the recipe.

Higher butterfat makes better cookies.

An average conventional American butter has an 80% butterfat content. Miller's butter is more of a European-style butter with 82-86% butterfat. 2% may seem small, but it makes a BIG difference in quality, flavor, and texture.

It's the very first sweet cream butter. Melted, browned, creamed or clarified, Land O Lakes® Salted Butter is the all-purpose butter that improves the taste of everything it touches. It's the original that never lets you, or your taste buds, down.

“The higher fat content in European butter can produce a richer flavor and a more tender texture in your homemade baked goods, making it the preferred choice for recipes where these qualities are the desired outcome,” she says.

Tips for Choosing Butter for Infusing

It's recommended to try different brands for different types of recipes. For instance, you may prefer Plugra for dessert recipes but find Land O'Lakes or Organic Valley better when regularly making infused entrees.