Everyone loves a good, tasty cookie. These snacks have a variety of ingredients, usually based on the baker’s preference. The texture that cookies come in also differs, but what do you do in cases where you want crispy cookies, but they keep turning out soft and chewy?
You can rebake cookies to make them crispy. Some cookies only need about five minutes of rebaking to get their fresh, melting, and warm taste back and become crispy again. However, others may need about ten to 15 minutes in an oven set to 300-350 °F (149-177 °C).
The rest of this article will further explain how to make crispy cookies and how to rebake cookies to make them crispy. Keep reading to also find out why cookies go soft and how to preserve your rebaked crispy cookies.
How To Rebake Cookies To Make Them Crispy
Even when you strictly follow a recipe, your cookies can surprise you. It can be very annoying to end up with cookies that are either not as crispy as imagined or grew soft over time. A rebake can fix this and restore the crispiness. Here’s how you can rebake your cookies to make them crispy:
1. Heat the Oven to 300–350 °F (149-177 °C)
The exact temperature depends on the state of the already baked cookies. If they’d been baked brown initially, a moderate to low temperature is satisfactory. It’s pretty important to get perfect heat for cookies because it largely defines how your cookies turn out.
2. Use a Wire Rack
You should use a wire rack to prevent overbaking your cookies. If you use a hot pan, it’ll continue baking the cookies and end up overbaking them, even when they’re out of the oven. On the other hand, using a wire rack will get air to circulate over the cookies, so they get baked just right. This way, the cookies stand a higher chance of being crispy.
3. Rebake for the Right Period
The duration for rebaking should depend on how well-baked the cookies initially were. You can rebake well-done cookies in as few as five minutes. If the cookies are light-brown, on the other hand, they may need ten to 15 minutes in the oven to get properly crispy.
Keep peeking in on the color of the cookies, so you can take them out as soon as they’re golden brown.
4. Observe the Cookies Closely
Because this is the second baking round, you have to pay extra attention to the baking process. A slight lag in the check-in time can make or mar the cookies, so ideally, you should stay with them all through while rebaking. If you can’t do that, though, it’s crucial that you check in on them frequently.
5. Keep the Oven Door Shut
Keeping the oven door shut is equally vital in achieving crispy results during rebaking. It’ll help keep the oven temperature stable and ensure even heat circulation for crisp cookie results. This is where an oven light comes in handy because it allows you to look in on the cookies without constantly opening the door to check on them.
Tips on Making Crispy Cookies
While some people want their cookies soft and chewy, others prefer their cookies crispier. Here are a few tips that’ll help you make super crispy cookies:
- Cut out eggs from the baking recipe: Don’t use white or brown eggs in your baking if you want crispy cookies. Eggs naturally contain moisture, which’ll cause your cookies to go brittle and soft. For crunchy and crispy cookies, no eggs should be used.
- Use less flour: Flour adds the main texture and fluff to cookies. If you use too much, though, it could make your cookies tender and mildly soggy. Cookies with less flour are usually crispier.
- Bake immediately after forming the dough: After the ingredients are mixed and your dough is ready, bake it directly. Leaving the dough unbaked could make your cookies turn out soft and chewy instead of being crisp.
- Bake at a lower oven temperature: If the oven temperature is too high, the required heat doesn’t spread across cookies for proper baking. Baking at a lower temperature will ensure cookies are adequately spread before they begin to rise for evenness and crispiness.
- Avoid using brown sugar: Brown sugar has extra molasses, so it contains more moisture than white sugar. Brown sugar also has more acid that forms a reaction with the baking soda that helps cookies rise. That’s why it’s not advisable to use brown sugar if you’re hoping for crispy cookies. White sugar, on the other hand, helps in creating a crusty feel and gives cookies a crispy, crunchy taste.
- Use all-purpose flour: All-purpose flour is very versatile, and it has a high protein content that forms more gluten. With more gluten formed, the cookie dough gets more elastic. The elasticity in the dough forms a huge part of what the cookies feel and taste like, so with all-purpose flour, crisping and browning are easier.
Why Do Cookies Go Soft?
Cookies go soft because they absorb the humidity in the air. The tiny drops of water they absorb from the atmosphere will form moisture in the cookies and cause them to get soft.
Other flour-made snacks like bread or cakes become stiff with more time spent in the air, but cookies are different. As they spend more time in the air, they absorb moisture and get softer.
How To Preserve Your Rebaked Crispy Cookies
After rebaking your cookies to get them nice and crispy again, you should keep them from losing that crunch. Here are tips for preserving your crispy cookies:
- Before storing the cookies, ensure they completely cool down.
- Store the cookies in an airtight cookie jar, so they don’t get moist.
- Don’t store cookies in a plastic container. A glass cookie jar will do nicely.
- A piece of white bread can be a good preservative. It helps to absorb the moisture that could soften the cookies.
- If you bake different cookie flavors, separate them and store them in different containers.
- You can freeze your cookies to maintain their crispness for up to two months.
Conclusion
Follow these steps to get the crisp back in your cookies by rebaking them. Cheers to eating crunchier cookies!
FAQs
You can rebake cookies to make them crispy. Some cookies only need about five minutes of rebaking to get their fresh, melting, and warm taste back and become crispy again. However, others may need about ten to 15 minutes in an oven set to 300-350 °F (149-177 °C).
Can you Rebake cookies to crisp them up? ›
When operating at low oven temperatures, cookies will require a longer baking time. This way they'll cook through evenly and achieve a crispier texture. In most cases, rebaking them typically takes no more than 15 minutes.
How to make cookies crispy again? ›
You could also re-crisp them by baking on a wire rack in a 300 degree F oven for a few minutes.
What causes a cookie to be too crispy? ›
Adding too little flour can cause cookies to be flat, greasy, and crispy.
How do you make cookies soft instead of crunchy? ›
Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.
What factors which allows cookies to be crispy soft and chewy? ›
Remember moisture is the key! White sugar creates crispier cookies and brown sugar creates chewier cookies. Why use melted butter? Melted butter creates cookies with a different texture compared to cookies made with softened or creamed butter.
How do you reheat cookies to make them crispy? ›
Reheating cookies in the oven is the better option for evenly warming the inside and outside of the treat. "When you reheat in the oven, the cookie can retain the nice and chewy texture with a crispy exterior," says Tiffany Lewis, chief cookie officer at Cookies with Tiffany.
Can I Rebake my cookies? ›
You can rebake cookies to make them crispy. Some cookies only need about five minutes of rebaking to get their fresh, melting, and warm taste back and become crispy again. However, others may need about ten to 15 minutes in an oven set to 300-350 °F (149-177 °C).
How to make stale cookies crisp again? ›
Place the sheet on the middle rack of a 225-degree oven for 15 to 25 minutes (the timing will vary, depending on the item), until the food is crisp again, stirring (or flipping, in the case of cookies) halfway through baking.
How to keep baked cookies crisp? ›
To keep crispy cookies crisp, you need to keep them away from moisture. Always store different types of cookies separately—soft cookies can cause crispy cookies to soften due to their extra moisture. Place crispy cookies in an airtight container, but don't completely seal it.
You see, the only thing that you need to soften up a batch of day-old cookies is a slice of bread. This is a trick I learned from my mom after she saw me turn up my nose one too many times at a slightly crispy chocolate chipper (self-proclaimed gooey, chewy cookie fiend here!).
Why are my cookies not crispy? ›
You didn't press the batter down before sliding them into the oven. Your cookies will end up chewy when you leave the batter as-is. How can I make my cookies crunchy? Adding more butter to your recipe, baking your cookies longer, and letting them cool on the baking sheet will help give you crunchier cookies.
What produces crispness in cookies? ›
Sugar: Using white sugar or corn syrup in a cookie produces a crisp end product. Corn syrup also browns more readily than some other sugars. Egg: Recipes without egg will yield a flatter, crisper cookie with more spread. Eggs provide moisture for steam which leavens the cookie dough.
How do you fix dry cookies? ›
If you leave your cookies out or they start to get stale and harden, you can fix it with a slice of bread! Add your cookies into an airtight container with a soft slice of bread and let it sit for 12-24 hours. When you open up the container, the bread will be hard and the cookie will be soft!
How do you fix cookies that are too soft? ›
Once it's clear that you do have limp cookies or less-than-crispy crackers, put them back into a preheated 300° F or 325° F oven, regardless of the original (presumably higher) baking temperature. I tend to use 300° F for items that can't afford to get darker, and 325° if a little extra color won't hurt.
What makes a cookie chewy or crunchy? ›
The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.
What are three factors that cause a cookie to be crisp? ›
Final answer: The crispness of a cookie is influenced by the ingredients, their proportions, and the baking conditions.
How do you increase crispness in cookies? ›
Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge. Baking your cookies right after making the dough will encourage them to spread in the oven, resulting in an extra-crispy cookie.
What ingredients contributes most to the texture of a crisp cookie? ›
Fat is a very important ingredient in cookies – it tenderizes, crisps and browns, adds color and a wonderful flavor that is impossible to duplicate. Butter, our fat of choice, ensures good baking results and adds the most desirable taste, texture and appearance.
Does baking powder make cookies crispy? ›
Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate and acidic salts. The reaction of these two ingredients results in a cookie that is soft and thick, but slightly harder.
If your cookies have cooled all the way down and they're still more on the raw side, they'll have to go back in the oven. As per Food52's instructions, preheat your oven to about 300 or 325 degrees Fahrenheit, then add the cookies in for 10 to 15 minutes at most, depending on how underbaked they were to begin with.
How can you make hard cookies soft again? ›
Re-Bake Them in an Oven
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Spread your cookies on a parchment sheet or a silicon mat.
- When the oven is ready, put the cookie pan in the oven.
- Cook for 1 to 2 minutes and enjoy your warm and gooey days-old cookies.
Fully cooked cookies should have a slightly crisp edge with a soft and chewy centre. If the cookie tastes raw or doughy, it needs more time in the oven.
