How to make the cookies you bake crispy?

Baking cookies is not difficult because most recipes do not need moulds or cookie cutters. You just need to spoon the cookie dough into the baking tray and bake. Though you may follow the recipe 100%, sometimes, you may not get crispy cookies but soft ones. So, what are the factors that cause your cookies to be not crispy but limp and soft?

Here are some of the things I learned after some trial and errors, and I learned well after batches of cookies I baked are dumped into the dustbin :

1) Not all ovens are built the same. So, you need to ‘get to know your oven well’ before you can get it right. Though the recipe may specified a certain temperature and baking time, you need to adjust too.

– If the cookies are burnt too quickly, reduce the temperature.

– If the cookies seem pale even after baking, crank up the temperature by 10 deg or 20 deg.

– If the cookies are still soft, leave them in the oven for another 5-10 minutes at a lower temperature.

The cookies will normally harden after they are leave to cool.

2) Usually, crispy cookies recipe do not ask for both egg yolk and egg white. However, there are some which do and I notice the cookies usually come out ‘cakey’ or like a hard cake, with the middle soft.

– If you want your cookies to be crispy, find recipes that uses either egg yolk only, egg white only or those that do not use eggs.

3) There are thousands of recipes out there and not every recipe works. So, sometimes you can only curse the person who gave you the recipe. Once you find one that works, keep that recipe well and use it often.

4) There are things sold by baking specialist shops that can make cookies crispier. Cooking Island Erina introduced me to emulder which is a whitish powder. I am not sure what it is made of but I guess it is still safer than eating store bought melamine biscuits. Hehehe.

5) Your baking tray. Today, I finally realised why my recent batch of cookies turned out soft. You must either heat up your cookie tray and only use it when it is hot;

or

use an aluminium baking tray and put it on the wire rack. (aluminium transfer heat faster)

I had used my oven baking tray which is made of stainless steel and coated (thick and heavy) and I used them when it is cold. No wonder all my cookies in the previous batch turned out soft because the temperature of the baking tray is low and hence, messed up all my cookies.

I baked a batch of cornflakes and chocolate chip cookies today and though they taste good, they are too ugly to be shown as I didn’t expect them to expand so much after baking. What I got was a batch of ‘hold hands together’ cookies. Hehehe.