Low Sugar Cookies Recipe | The Bewitchin' Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

Will high sugar content decrease the spread of a cookie? ›

The lower the amount of sugar in the cookie, the less it will spread. The lower the amount of sugar, the drier and more crumbly the cookie will be.

Basically, cookies made with butter spread more and are flatter and crisper if baked long enough. However, they are more flavorful than cookies made with shortening. Cookies made with shortening bake up taller and are more tender, but aren't as flavorful.

If all you have on hand is foil and you don't like thin and crispy cookies, try chilling your dough before baking to prevent excess spreading — or just skip the lining altogether and bake them on an ungreased sheet pan. A nonstick silicone cookie mat made the best cookies of all the tests I tried.

Since flour provides the bulk of the structure in a cookie, the amount you use can alter the texture of the cookie: less flour to butter ratio means thin spread out cookies; more flour to butter ratio means dense and doughy cookies that don't spread as much.

The chemistry of sugar attracts water molecules, so cutting it out can make your baked goods too tough and dry.

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

Crisco keeps cookies softer longer than butter. She may have been using it to replace some of the butter.

Because of this caster sugar is generally the most versatile and preferred of the two when baking – its small granules mixes more easily and dissolve more readily when combined with other ingredients giving biscuits, cakes, pastries etc. a more even, less coarse texture.

So by poking the holes in, the cookie. will ensure that the cookie shape does not spread, which sugar cookies love to do.

What does cornstarch do in cookies? ›

“You can count on [it for] a softer and more tender crumb.” “A bonus benefit is it prevents the cookie from spreading too much while baking,” he adds, noting that a more compact, thick cookie typically yields a chewier outcome. But incorporating cornstarch isn't the only tip to make a cookie more palatable.

Too much flour causes the dough to become dry and crumbly, which prevents it from flattening out during baking. As a result, your cookies will stay in their original shape instead of spreading out into nice circles.

Pastry Flour: An unbleached flour made from soft wheat, with protein levels somewhere between cake flour and all-purpose flour (8 to 9 percent). Pastry flour strikes the ideal balance between flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and many cookies.

Eggs promote puffiness and spreading in cookies, while also holding the cookie together during baking. The height and texture of the final product is determined by how much egg is incorporated into the batter. Substituting ingredients can make or break a recipe.

But is sifting flour necessary? That depends. Sifting flour is recommended for some desserts where the goal is light, delicate, and fluffy results (think angel food cakes, sponge cakes, and chiffon cakes). However, sifting flour isn't a must for desserts that are chewy or crisp, like cookies.

Cookies spread because the fat in the cookie dough melts in the oven. If there isn't enough flour to hold that melted fat, the cookies will over-spread. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour. If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough.

White sugar, with its neutral pH, interferes with gluten development, allowing the dough to spread more before it sets.

Sugar sweetens the cookies and makes them an enticing golden brown. Adding too little sugar can affect the taste and texture of cookies. Adding too much can cause them to be brittle. Take your time creaming the sugar and butter together at the beginning.

What happens if you increase the amount of sugar called for in cookies? Conversely, when you increase the sugar in cookies, you'll get cookies that spread more and have an ultra moist and chewy texture in addition to a sweeter flavor.