Flour. Depending on its ratio to other ingredients in the dough, flour
makes cookies chewy or crisp or crumbly
. In dry cookie dough, like shortbread, a high proportion of flour to the small amount of liquid in the butter produces a tender, crumbly texture.
Flour adds fluff and texture to the cookies. Adding too little
flour can cause cookies to be flat, greasy and crispy
. Baking soda helps cookies spread outward and upward while cooking. Adding too little can cause flat, lumpy cookies.
When added to dough, baking soda
releases a carbon dioxide gas which helps leaven the dough, creating a soft, fluffy cookie
. Baking soda is generally used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, sour cream or citrus.
A cookie with a
leavening agent
—along with eggs and steam—will rise in the oven. Without it, that cookie is dense and flat. A leavening agent is also what introduces air into the cookie dough so it can be light. Leavening also helps with coloring and browning.
Typically,
flour is responsible for the texture and consistency in cookies
. … Much like in bread and other baked goods, flour helps the cookie hold its shape during the baking process. Biscotti is one example of a cookie that needs a lot of flour, as it needs to hold a specific shape as it is cooking in the oven.
Flour. Most cookie recipes call for
all-purpose or pastry flour
. If you use bread flour with its high gluten protein content, or cake flour, which is high in starch, you'll end up with cookies that tend to spread less when you bake them.
There are three general types of leavening agents:
biological (yeast), chemical (baking soda and baking powder)
, and steam (from moisture in the dough)
9
. The crinkle cookie recipe in question used steam and baking soda (not baking powder!) as the primary leavening agents.
It is possible to make cookies without baking soda or baking powder, but the
resulting cookie will be dense
. This is because carbon dioxide is not being produced by a chemical reaction that typically occurs when baking soda or powder is present in the cookie batter.
Flour
is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising.
In most baked goods,
baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
acts as a rising agent, but in cookies it's much more important for encouraging browning. It does so by neutralizing acidic ingredients in dough, such as brown sugar, honey, vanilla, and butter, which would normally inhibit browning.
The protein in the yolk heats up and turns into a “gel-like substance
,” which allows for a super soft texture once fully baked. The more eggs you add, the more chewy and almost cake-like your cookie will be.
Mistake: When cookies turn out flat, the bad guy is often butter that is too soft or even melted. This makes cookies spread. The other culprit is too
little flour
—don't hold back and make sure you master measuring. … If too-little flour was the issue, try adding an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour to the dough.
Chewy cookies are the opposite
, as they tend to be somewhat malleable and bendable before they split into two pieces. Cakey cookies are on another end of the spectrum, as they are thicker than chewy cookies, but they are also a bit more rigid in structure than chewy cookies are.
Nothing is more delicious than a warm, chewy chocolate chip cookie. Using whole wheat flour instead
of all-purpose
makes this a contender for the best-tasting cookie ever!
Yes
, you can use cake flour in cookies! It will change the texture, but will still be delicious! It will change the texture, if the recipe calls for plain or all-purpose flour, but this might be preferable if you want a lighter texture. Nothing bad will happen if you use cake flour in your cookie dough.
What are the different kinds of flour?
- All-Purpose Flour.
- Whole Wheat Flour.
- White Whole Wheat Flour.
- Pastry Flour.
- Cake Flour.
- Bread Flour.
- Self-Rising Flour.
- Vital Wheat Gluten Flour.
