COOKIE TOO SOFT OR TOO CRUMBLY

[RED VELVET LOVER]

hi! ive been having problems with my cookies post baking.

My RED VELVET COOKIES WITH CREAM CHEESE are too soft after baking for 350F for about 15-20 minutes and completely cooling them (initially ive been baking them for 350F for 12 minutes). its too soft that it bends on its own upon picking them up.

on the other hand, my BITTERSWEET COCOA COOKIES becomes too crumbly after baking and cooling using the same heat and baking time. too crumbly means it crumbles into pieces.

i dont know what keeps them from being too soft and too crumbly, respectively. i really want them to have a consistent consistency.. FIRM COOKIE. CRISPY OUTSIDE. CHEWY INSIDE.

I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out with this.

thank you so much for your time!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

A cookie that bends does not have enough strengthened; or too much tenderizers.

Strengtheners are:

Flour: either not enough flour or the protein in the flour is too low

Eggs: not enough egg


Tenderizers are:

Fats: too much fat to flour by weight in formula

Sugar: too much sugar to flour by weight in formula

Leavening: too much leavening to flour in the formula.

There can be a combination of these factors, for example, protein in flour is too weak, too much fat, too much sugar.

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Crumbly cookie is normally a dry dough. Too much flour to fat and liquid. if it’s a chocolate cookie and you added cocoa powder, and did not reduce the flour or increase the fat/liquid, then the dough will be dry and crumbly.

 

[RED VELVET LOVER]

A cookie that bends does not have enough strengthened; or too much tenderizers.

Strengtheners are:

Flour: either not enough flour or the protein in the flour is too low

Eggs: not enough egg


Tenderizers are:

Fats: too much fat to flour by weight in formula

Sugar: too much sugar to flour by weight in formula

Leavening: too much leavening to flour in the formula.

There can be a combination of these factors, for example, protein in flour is too weak, too much fat, too much sugar.

===============

Crumbly cookie is normally a dry dough. Too much flour to fat and liquid. if it’s a chocolate cookie and you added cocoa powder, and did not reduce the flour or increase the fat/liquid, then the dough will be dry and crumbly.

Thank you so much for this..

For my Red Velvet cookie.. do you recommend that i add 15g more of my all purpose flour until the dough becomes slightly dry?

And for the crumbly cookie, can i add more milk instead? But this would make the dough stickier since the dough of the crumbly cookie is already a bit sticky.. will it be okay?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Thank you so much for this..

For my Red Velvet cookie.. do you recommend that i add 15g more of my all purpose flour until the dough becomes slightly dry?

And for the crumbly cookie, can i add more milk instead? But this would make the dough stickier since the dough of the crumbly cookie is already a bit sticky.. will it be okay?

I have no idea what type of flour you’re using, the whether it’s bleached and unbleached the protein content; I have no idea the type of fats; The type of sugar, or the formula for the cream cheese cookie.

Your guess is better than mine since you know the recipe and your ingredients. The best I can do is tell you what causes weakness in the structure.

I would not start by adding more flour because that throws ratio of flour to all other ingredients out of sync. baking is a chemical reaction of all the ingredients to temperature and time. The formula is developed based on a ratio of ingredients by weight against a constant. In doughs and batters the constant is the flour. in a meringue the constant would be the egg whites. in a custard the constant may be the whole egg.

So if you change the amount of flour you change the ratio of flour to sugar, flour to leavening, flour to egg, etc.

It’s best to start with one of the other ingredients that causes weakening (tenderizer). Try reducing one of the fats.

Again with the chocolate cookie I have no information about the formula. Look at the flour to cocoa powder ratio. Depending on the type of flour, there should be about 17% - 20% cocoa powder to flour.

Divide the weight of the cocoa powder into the weight of the flour. That’s the percentage of cocoa powder to flour.

Example

150g flour
45g cocoa powder

45÷150 = .3

There’s 30% cocoa powder to flour

To reduce it multiply the percentage you want, with the weight of the flour.

Example you want to try 17% cocoa powder

150 x .17 = 25.5

Use 25 g cocoa powder

Using this approach to adjust the ratio of any individual ingredient in the recipe without affecting the ratio of flour to the other ingredients.

If you want to adjust the milk you need to first find out the milk to flour ratio. Go through the same process to calculate the milk ratio. Decide what percentage you would like to increase the milk, then make the actual calculation based on that percentage.

Don’t adjust a recipe by randomly pulling numbers out of the air.