Why Do My Vegan Cookies Go Flat? (2023)

FAQs

Why do my vegan cookies go flat? ›

Your vegan butter or margarine was too soft

Using butter or margarine that's too soft is probably the most common reason why vegan cookies go flat. This can happen if you've melted it, left it out of the fridge for too long before using, or it could simply be that your kitchen is too hot and humid.

Chill the cookie dough.

Chilling cookie dough helps prevent spreading. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. You'll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies. Whenever I make cookies, I plan ahead and chill the cookie dough overnight.

Excess Sugar and Fat

Measuring is key in baking. If your cookie contains excess sugar or fat, it will spread while baking. If your first batch of cookies spreads, try adding a few tablespoons of flour to help thicken the remaining dough.

Baking Powder. The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.

Too much butter: Too much butter is usually the biggest culprit if you have cookies that are flat. I initially tested this recipe with 1/2 cup (1 stick or 8 tbsp) of butter, but the cookies were completely flat. So, I cut out just 1 tbsp of butter and it made a huge difference.

Using too little flour will prevent rising, and too much sugar will result in more spreading since sugar liquefies when heated.

We get that you're anxious, but if you want fluffy cookies, you seriously need to chill… the dough. Why? Because of that whole issue with butter melting prematurely. Refrigerate your batter for at least 10 minutes before scooping it onto a baking sheet.

Why This Works: Cornstarch binds with the liquids in your dough, so this makes your cookies spread less. It will also help them be soft and tender!

Baking soda also serves another important purpose when it comes to cookies: It encourages spreading by raising the mixture's pH, which slows protein coagulation. This gives the dough more time to set before the eggs set, which results in a more evenly baked cookie.

If your baking soda or baking powder is expired, your cookies won't develop as they are supposed to – causing them not to rise but simply to spread across your oven tray. It's a good idea to regularly replace your raising agents as they are key to baked goods rising as they should when baked.

What makes cookies soft and fluffy? ›

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.

Baking soda reacts with an acid to cause batters and doughs to rise and spread while baking. Baking powder reacts with liquid and heat to create a light, fluffy texture in baked goods. While they sound similar, baking soda and baking powder cannot be used interchangeably.

All-purpose flour is best used for: cookies, muffins, bread, pie crusts, pancakes, biscuits, pizza dough, and pasta.

In the early creaming stages of making a cookie, cool butter is beaten until it's light and fluffy. During the process, some air is incorporated and some of the sugar dissolves in the butter's water phase. This air in turn helps leaven the cookies as they bake, giving them some lift.

If you use baking soda and your cookies are flat, switch to baking powder as this helps puff up dough more, making your cookie fluffy.

Your oven is too hot.

The hotter your oven is, the more quickly the fat in your cookies (like butter) starts to melt. Baking them at a lower temperature for a few minutes longer can help them stay thick and chewy.

If your oven is baking too hot or too cold, your cookies will be baked too quickly or too slowly. This could result in your cookies burning or falling flat while baking. To remedy this, buy an oven thermometer (it doesn't need to be an expensive one) so that you know what the temperature in your oven actually is.

Baking with almond flour: conclusions

Cookies and scones may spread more; cake, biscuits, and muffins may rise less. When you add almond flour to yeast-based recipes, bread or rolls will be moister and more tender — good if you're talking soft dinner rolls, not so good for crusty/chewy breads or pizza crust.

Chilling cookie dough controls spread.

Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.

Cookie temperatures fluctuate, with some recipes as low as 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and a few as high as 425 degrees Fahrenheit, but most recipes land on 375 or 350 to evenly bake the entirety of the cookie.

Why didn't my cookies hold their shape? ›

Butter too warm or too cold – If your butter is too warm, your cookies won't hold their shape well. If it's too cold, that leads to overmixing, which we'll discuss a little further down.

What are the primary causes of this? The steam and other hot gasses that were puffing the cookies up either escapes or condenses. Without heat to create more steam, the cookies deflate. You get exactly the same effect with bread, quiches, and other baked goods.

When added to cake, cookie, pie filling and shortbread recipes, cornstarch helps create a crumbly and tender dessert-like texture. Commercially, cornstarch is often used as an anti-caking agent.

When baking soda is mixed with an acid, the baking soda produces bubbles and a carbon dioxide gas, which cause the raw dough or batter to rise as a result. When baking soda is used in cookies, it gives the cookies a chewy, coarse texture.

Room temperature butter is just the right consistency to incorporate air when it's creamed with sugar. These trapped air pockets result in risen, fluffy cookies. If the butter is any warmer, it won't incorporate enough air and your cookies will have less rise.

You'll be able to make your cookies turn out just fine so long as you have flour to use. However, the cookies won't be quite the same as they would have been if you used cornstarch.

Baking Soda

It's used to chemically leaven doughs and batters when it is mixed with an acid. Combining baking soda with an acid produces a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide gas which causes the food to expand and become fluffy. Think about light and airy pancakes. That's the baking soda at work.

As Joy of Baking explains, a surplus of baking powder will turn your treat's flavor bitter. And that's not even the worst part. Adding in too much baking powder could cause your dessert to rise too fast and fall apart.

What Happens to Cookies without Baking Soda? If you have a recipe that asks for baking soda and you leave it out completely, your cookies will likely be extremely dense as there was no chemical reaction to introduce those gas bubbles and give it rise.

What does baking soda do? ›

A: Baking soda acts as a chemical leavener. It reacts with an acid to produce carbon dioxide — or loads of bubbles — a process that allows cakes, cookies, and other baked goods to rise.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes).

Granulated sugar

Using granulated white sugar will result in a flatter, crispier and lighter-colored cookie. Granulated sugar is hygroscopic, so it attracts and absorbs the liquid in the dough. This slows down the development of the gluten (flour), which makes the cookies crispier.

Rest the Dough A secret baker's trick is to rest your cookie dough in the fridge. You can rest it for at least an hour, which will evaporate some of the water and increase the sugar content, helping to keep your baked cookies chewy.

Many bakeries use specialised packaging to protect their goods' quality, increasing their baked treats' shelf life, which includes using airtight containers or bags that help trap moisture and preserve cookies for days or weeks.

In cookies, softened butter will result in a cakier and airier cookie than using melted butter. This is due to the fact that softened butter will create air bubbles that expand in the oven during baking. Melted butter will make your cookies delightfully dense on the inside and crisp on the edges.

To create cookies, you typically use whole eggs and their proteins for flavor, leavening, structure, and color. Eggs promote puffiness and spreading in cookies, while also holding the cookie together during baking.

Good rule of thumb: I usually use around 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per 1 cup of flour in a recipe. Baking soda CAN leaven a baked good when exposed to heat. However, unless it is neutralized with an acid, your finished baked good will likely have a metallic aftertaste—like I mention above.

"My golden rule for baking is make it cold and bake it hot," she said.

Pastry Flour: An unbleached flour made from soft wheat, with protein levels somewhere between cake flour and all-purpose flour (8 to 9 percent). Pastry flour strikes the ideal balance between flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and many cookies.

Does sifting flour make a difference in cookies? ›

Sifting the flour helped promote consistency in recipe results by removing the larger particles that could potentially result in densely textured baked goods or even ones that would sink in the middle.

For the vast majority of baked goods, we want a toothpick inserted in the center to come out clean, indicating that the crumb is fully set and no excess moisture remains. This ensures that the item will slice neatly and hold together when cool.

Oven Temperature

For chewy cookies, allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 3 to 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. For crispier cookies, let cookies cool for one minute on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

If your first batch of cookies bakes flat, try adding 1-2 tablespoons of flour to the remaining dough. Then bake a test cookie before baking the rest or adding a bit more flour.

Find a basic cookie recipe you like the taste of, then bake a few to make sure that the cookies don't spread when you bake them. If they do spread, you can add a few tablespoons of flour to the dough and mix again.

When it comes to hair care, baking soda can function as a clarifying agent that penetrates the hair shaft, removing dirt, oil, and product buildup. As a result, gray hair becomes brighter, smoother, and less brassy.

In recipes where they're the only vegan substitute, both vegan butters will produce baked goods with texture similar to that of dairy butter, with flavor being the main difference. When substituting additional vegan ingredients (mainly eggs), the recipe may not turn out the same, texture-wise, as originally intended.

If you want the best flavor and texture, place your freshly made cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for one week, or store them in an airtight container or freezer bag and freeze them for up to two months. Are vegan eggless vanilla cookies ideal for immediate consumption or to store?

To store: Cookies can be stored in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. If you'd like them to keep longer, you can store them in the refrigerator. To freeze: Place leftovers in a ziplock bag and store it in the freezer for up to 6 months.

If you use too much butter, the cookies will end up flat and greasy. And if you use too little flour, the amount of butter and sugar will be proportionally too high, meaning the cookies will spread for the aforementioned reasons.

What is the best vegan butter substitute for sugar cookies? ›

What are good vegan butter substitutes? In baking, you can use vegan butter, applesauce, dairy-free yogurt, coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, nut butter, mashed banana and mashed avocado. In cooking, you can use olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable stock, or avocado oil to replace butter.

We recommend storing your cookie dough in a small airtight container in your fridge or freezer, depending on when you want to bake it. As a general rule, any cookie dough left on the counter at room temperature will be good for 2-4 hours but then may risk going bad, especially if it is already past its “best by” date.

You can definitely store it in the fridge, in an airtight container. If storing in the fridge, it will keep for up to 10 days. If not storing in the fridge, the dough will last up to 4 days. You can also freeze this edible vegan cookie dough for up to 3 months in an airtight container.

It's all about moisture. To keep it simple, cookie recipes that contain a lot of butter, brown sugar or egg yolks are going to yield soft and chewy cookies, because those ingredients add moisture and retain it for a longer amount of time.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product.

To keep chewy cookies from turning dry and brittle, store them in a zipper-lock bag at room temperature with a small piece of bread (no more than half of a slice) placed inside.

Simply put, vegan baking alternatives are just healthier. Still, vegan cookies aren't a miraculous calorie-free food. You can add tons of sugar to a recipe even if you've cut out all the milk and eggs. Vegan cookies still need a source of fat to replace the butter, as well as flour and, of course, sugar.

As we mentioned, most cookie recipes last up to 3 months in freezer bags or containers when you store cookies unfrosted. Get all the freezing information here.