Cookies are tasty when they have a nice balance of crunchiness and softness. When they are too crumbly and dry, they don’t taste as good as they should.
So, what to add to dry cookie dough? And how to fix dry cookie dough?
Check out everything you need to know to fix dry dough below!
What Makes Cookies Dough Crumbly And Dry?
There are many reasons for that result. The simple answer is because your cookie batter too dry. And the fact is that the problem doesn’t lie in how you bake it but in how you prepare the dough.
So, if you wonder, “Why is chilled cookie dough too hard?”, or “Why do you have crumbly sugar cookies or crumbly cookie dough?”
The overall problem would be excessive dry ingredients, lack of fat and wet ingredients, overmixing, or lack of liquid.
One exception is if you don’t know, “Why is your shortbread cookie dough too dry or fudge dough too crumbly?”.
It is the lack of eggs in the traditional recipes. The protein in eggs helps connect the dough structure, so those recipes without eggs, like shortbread and fudge dough, tend to have a crumbly texture.
If your cookie recipes already have eggs, you need to look into the details of each issue below.
1. Excessive Dry Ingredients
Flour is an ingredient for making your cookies fluffy. However, it is a dry ingredient that can absorb any liquid.
That’s why you need to put an appropriate amount of flour and dry ingredients like oatmeal and grains so they can be combined with other wet ingredients well.
If you add too much flour, there won’t be enough liquid inside the cookie dough resulting in dry and crumbly cookie batter.
But when you add too little flour, the cookie dough will become flat and greasy. Therefore, the added amount of flour must be carefully calculated and measured before mixing with the whole batch.
2. Lack Of Fat And Wet Ingredients
Animal fat, cookie butter, and shortening are the common must-have ingredients in cookie recipes. They play an important role in working as a lubricant in cookies to make the butter cookie dough tender and soft.
Therefore, when adding to the dough, they should have the right ratio amount to ensure a balanced result.
If there are not enough wet ingredients, the flour will outweigh the liquid ingredients, leading to a dry and crumbly dough.
3. Wrong Fat Type
Another reason that can lead to dry dough is using the wrong fat type.
Some butter substitutes can contain more water content than fat content leading to less coated cookie dough.
Each type of fat can also influence the texture of the cookie if you don’t know how to use them properly.
For example, butter-based recipes can have a waffle and crispy texture, while shortening-based recipes tend to be soft and spongy. Lard cookies can have flaky and crumbly dough.
4. Overmixing
Mixing cookie dough is also an important part that can affect the texture of your cookies tremendously.
When you mix the dough, the flour inside will develop gluten. The more gluten it produces, the dryer and crumblier the dough will be.
How To Fix Dry Cookie Dough In Specific Cases
When following a cookie recipe, we always expect the result to be fluffy and crispy, but they aren’t likely to work smoothly as we want.
Sometimes they become dry and crumbly biscuits which are not as tasty as the store-bought ones.
If you’re looking for a way to fix your dry chocolate chip cookies or any types of cookies, I have just the right tricks for you.
How To Fix Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you have already finished baking your batch of cookies and the result is too dry. Don’t worry; they can still be salvageable! So, how to soften cookie dough?
To soften the texture of the chocolate chip cookie, you can add a moisture source to these cookies. A slice of bread or apple is a nice source for this job.
Simply put these cookies in a sealed bag or cookie jar with the bread or apple. Then leave them overnight, and they will be so much softer than before.
Another faster way to moisten dry cookies is microwaving cookies. Basically, you need to put the tough cookies on a plate with a bowl of water.
Then, microwave them in 30 seconds to tenderize the dry cookies. This method is tricky because they become too tough to eat if you leave them for too long.
How To Fix Dry Cookie Dough
If you’re still working on your cookie dough, you can still change the dry destiny of your cookies. Fixing them is simple if you have learned the causes of this dryness.
So, how to make cookie dough more moist?
To change the cookie dough stage, you need to check back what you changed compared to the original recipes.
Maybe you forgot to add enough milk, water, or egg whites; then, you should start adding milk to cookie dough.
You can also add some fat to moisten the cookie dough. An extra teaspoon of butter, vegetable oil, or margarine can offer a big difference.
How To Fix Cookie Dough With Too Much Flour
Dry and crumbly cookie dough consistency can be the result of cookies with too much flour.
Flour can absorb a huge amount of liquid, so you need to make sure the flour amount is balanced with the added liquid amount.
If there is too much flour, you need to add more wet ingredients and liquid. However, you need to be aware of the input amount as an excessive cup of liquid or fat can resolve oily cookies.
Normally, I would add 1 – 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 2-4 tablespoons of granulated sugar to the cookie dough at a time to test out the texture.
If they are still dry, you can add more to achieve your desired texture following my cookies taste like flour post.
How To Fix Crumbly Cookie Dough
Crumbly cookie dough happens when a lack of liquid, undermix, or cookie dough is dried out in the fridge.
One way to fix this issue is by adding some moisture to the dough. You can get a bowl of cold water and dip your fingers inside.
Then use your fingers as a moisture source to knead the cookie dough so that the moisture is spread out evenly.
How To Fix Overmixed Cookie Dough
Maybe overmixing cookie dough is your issue. Then the resolution is pretty simple: let the cookie rest for a while.
It is quite understandable as gluten has been building up during the mixing process now. If you leave the dough for a while, you limit the excessive gluten and allow them to soften.
You can cover the dough and leave it on the kitchen counter for an hour at room temperature. Once the cookie dough is ready, you can bake it right away.
How To Fix Cookie Dough With Too Much Butter
If you wonder, “why is my cookie batter too wet?”
The answer is because there is too much butter added. During the baking process, flat cookies will be crispy on the outside but raw on the inside.
In this case, I would add a cup of All-Purpose flour and mix them all. As the cup of flour quickly absorbs all the extra liquid, my cookie dough becomes delectable again.
How To Fix Cookie Dough Too Sticky Roll Into Balls
Cookie dough becomes sticky when there is an imbalance of flour and wet ingredients. Normally, the ratio should be one wet part for three parts dry so the dough can be soft instead of wet and sticky.
When they are too sticky, like fixing flat cookies, you need to add more flour. I would recommend bread flour as it is a high gluten flour that absorbs more water and additional liquid than other types.
You can add them while kneading the flour so they can coat it evenly. In addition, you shouldn’t add sugar as it doesn’t act as a binding ingredient as flour.
Tips To Make Amazing Cookie Dough
Cookie dough recipes are delicious to enjoy when you know how to make them fluffy and soft. Although they might take only a short time to make, it only takes you one wrong move to ruin the whole batch.
So, let me share with you some cookie baking tips for perfect cookies as daily snacks.
Let The Dough Rest
Many recipes might ask you to do some excessive steps that you can remove when baking it. However, resting the cooking dough is not one of these steps.
Chilling cookie dough will help enhance the flavor and moisten the dough to be fluffy and buttery cookies.
Choose The Right Temperature
When baking cookies, it is important to ensure that your oven’s real temperature is 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The wrong temperature can lead to uneven baking.
You can get an oven thermometer and place it in your oven, so you are certain of the temperature.
Focus On The Cookies
Many baking recipes online give you random baking time that doesn’t give you the right result. So, 1 minute or 10 minutes are not important.
The real sign you should look for to guarantee that your cookies are fully baked is looking at the cookies.
If your baked cookies are set at the edges and browned on the outside, they are ready to be out of the oven. Soft cookies should have an underbaked look at the center when crispy cookies have a ready look at the center part.
FAQs
1. Can You Overmix Cookie Dough?
Cookie dough is dry due to overmixing and can happen very often for cookie makers. Normally, a common cookie should be mixed for 2-6 minutes.
2. Is Cookie Dough Edible?
If your cookie dough before baking involves raw ingredients like raw eggs and excess flour, it is not safe enough to eat as the ingredients can have harmful bacteria.
