But for chocolate chip cookies, you’d use baking soda because it allows the dough to spread, and you get thinner, crisp edges with a tender center. … The gas bubbles are trapped by the starch in the batter or dough and cause the baked good to expand while in the oven.
Baking soda is generally used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar, sour cream or citrus. Tip: For recipes that call for baking soda, work quickly and bake immediately after mixing, or the reaction will cease and your cookies will fall flat.
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. … If your cookies are still spreading, add an extra 2 Tablespoons of flour to the cookie dough. Don’t overmix the cookie dough ingredients.
It also raises the dough’s pH, and that’s a pretty big deal. Creating an alkaline environment slows protein coagulation, which gives the dough more time to spread before the eggs set. This promotes a uniform thickness from edge to center, helping the cookies bake more evenly.
Baking soda helps cookies spread more than baking powder.
So if you prefer your cookies thin and wavy (versus domed and cakey), baking soda is most likely a better route for you. Just remember: Soda spreads, powder puffs. 3.
Kitchens tend to heat up during any baking extravaganza, which means the butter you leave on the counter to soften might just get too soft. If this happens, the butter will melt faster in the oven and your cookies will flatten before they’ve been able to set.
Hints To Prevent Flat Cookies
- Refrigerate the cookie dough. …
- Butter vs. …
- Don’t use margarine. …
- Don’t overbeat the dough. …
- If you’re rolling the cookie dough, form the dough balls tall instead of perfectly round. …
- Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. …
- Room temperature pans.
Cold Butter
Using cold butter in your cookie dough gives the final cookie a more textured and taller look as the milk content in the butter evaporates and creates steam. Softened butter, on the other hand, melts more quickly in the oven which leads to the spreading of the cookie.
Most cookie dough spreads while baking as the fat melts because the formula is designed for this to happen. However, some recipes don’t spread, so they require that you flatten the dough before baking. Otherwise, you will have cookies that are puffy and unevenly cooked.
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.
Too much baking soda causes cakes to brown and may leave a weird taste. The Maillard reaction speeds up under basic conditions (like when you add to a recipe a lot of baking soda, which is alkaline, i.e. basic).