Life
Baking cookies for my children's teachers and our friends and family is one of the things I look forward to most about the holiday season (and sampling them afterwards). But avoiding common cookie baking mistakes is kind of a crucial part of the process, and I'll be the first to admit, while I'm filled with enthusiasm for baking, I'm no Martha Stewart in the kitchen. Maybe it's all that precise measuring, but I would like to improve my baking skills so there are no more burnt-to-a-crisp cookies in my future. (My children think I would be an excellent candidate for Nailed It on Netflix.)
For advice on all things baking, I asked my friend and cookie baking goddess Loren Brill of Sweet Loren's. Loren brought her vision of a clean baking company offering refrigerated cookie dough (and edible cookie batter) to life after beating cancer at a young age, an experience that made her reconsider the importance of eating "clean" foods with simple ingredients. Her hard work (and sweet tooth) has paid off: you can now find Sweet Loren's cookie dough and edible cookie batter in grocery stores around the country.
And she's got some tried and true advice, along with a few other kitchen mavens, to help you bake your way through this holiday.
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Parchment Paper Is Your Baking Buddy
When rolling out your dough, the Sweet Loren's team advises using parchment paper as opposed to just rolling out on your counter top. The parchment paper secret? "It will easily lift up the flour and help with an easier clean up."
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Over-Mixing
Cowen also told Insider about another cardinal mistake that bakers can make: the art of the over-mixing (raises hand). "Over-mixing your dough will result in flatter, crispier cookies. If you over-mix the dough, you will end up aerating the dough (adding air) which causes the cookies to rise and then fall, leaving you with flat cookies."
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Burnt Bottoms & Cookies That Stick To The Pan
Lindsay of Sprinkles for Breakfast had a couple suggestions to avoid a burnt cookie bottom or, even worse, when they're stuck to the pan. "Do not bake your cookies on the bottom rack," she wrote. "Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper."
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