Drop Sugar Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the mixing method for drop cookies? ›

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream 2 cups of butter and 1 cup of confectioners' sugar until fluffy. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and combine. Gradually add in 3 1/2 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of salt until wet and dry ingredients are well combined. Add nuts or other additional ingredients of your choosing.

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.

Drop cookies, as the name suggests, are baked by dropping or pushing spoonfuls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet.

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.

Drop cookie dough varies in texture from quite soft to stiff. When cookie dough is thick, drop rounds as usual but then flatten them to allow cookies to bake as discs rather than as mounds.

Granulated sugar: Derived from either sugarcane or sugar beets, this is the most commonly used sugar in baking, and for good reason. It's neutral in flavor and has medium-sized, uniform crystals that are small enough to dissolve into batters and large enough to create air pockets when creamed with butter.

The higher the proportion of butter to other ingredients, the more tender your cookie will be (and consequently, the more it will spread as it bakes). I found that a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 part sugar to 0.8 parts butter was about right for a cookie that has moderate spread and doesn't end up cakey.

Decorate After Baking

In order to add colored sugar to baked cookies, the sugar needs something to adhere to. Icing is the perfect choice. Bake and cool the cookies as directed by the recipe. Ice the very cool cookies with your favorite icing and top with your choice of colored sugar.

Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies. That said, using a combination of butter and vegetable shortening (as in the original recipe), or even using all butter, will make an acceptably crunchy chocolate chip cookie.

What utensil is best for forming drop cookies? ›

Cookie scoops are extremely handy. They help keep your drop cookies uniform in size and shape; an easy squeeze of the handle cleanly releases the sticky dough ball; plus, they have so many other uses!

Fried cookies, growing in popularity, are drop cookies or filled cookies that are cooked in oil. Sometimes referred to as simply “fried dough,” these types of cookies they are often dusted with powdered sugar after being cooked. They are best when served immediately.

Softened butter and melted butter are not the same. Using melted butter will change the texture of whatever you're baking. If you only want the butter to soften for spreading, microwave it on the Defrost setting (30%) in 5-second increments until it's softened as desired.

If you enjoy your cookies soft and chewy, chances are likely the recipe contains a common ingredient that serves a very specific purpose. No, it's not granulated sugar, nor the butter. It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch.

Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.

CREAMING METHOD: The creaming method is the most common method for mixing cookie dough. The creaming method creams together sugar and fat, such as butter or shortening, making a smooth, creamy mixture. It is smooth because air has been beaten into the fat and sugar cells.

A chocolate chip cookie is an example of a heterogeneous mixture because it is made up of different materials that can be easily distinguished. In chocolate chip cookies, the mixture is not evenly distributed. Taking multiple samples of the same mass or volume will result in differing composition of its components.

Dropped cookies are made from a free-form piece of dough, generally about 1 tablespoon's worth, that is dropped from a spoon or two or a small scoop onto a prepared cookie sheet. Other drop cookies come from a small piece of dough that is rolled into a ball first.

There are three types of mixing we use to make cookies. Mono phase, Sponge, and creaming method. Overall, they all are like typical cake formulas except the lower fluid content and expected lower gluten formation in the dough. Remember that more gluten means that the dough will be stiffer at the end.