Welcome to Hotline Rewind, the weekly series where we gather up your questions from the week (and pepper in some from the Hotline archives) about a specific culinary topic. Because the holidays are officially here, we’re fully focused on the bite-sized, highly decorated world of cookies. We’ve received tons of questions over the years—and many in the last week!—about the intricacies of baking. Here are a few of the most common ones:
My cookies always spread! What am I doing wrong?
This almost always comes down to fat: if you’re doing a classic cookie recipe with creamed butter and sugar, it’s likely that you are either using butter that is too warm or borderline-melted, or you’re not chilling the dough. A lot of cookie recipes don’t require chilling, but I think almost every cookie would benefit from 10 to 20 minutes in the freezer pre-bake.
That’s because chilling helps to cool the fat down and let the flour absorb more moisture. With warmer butter, it will melt faster in the oven and keep the cookie from holding its shape.
Two other less common reasons can be overworking your dough or that your leaveners could be expired. People always forget to check their baking powders and sodas but these things absolutely expire and lose their rising power!
What is the difference between semisweet and bittersweet chocolate chips?
The primary difference is cacao content: Semisweet usually has ~60% vs bittersweet’s 70%. Because they can taste a bit more bitter than milk chocolate, use them in baking projects where you need to balance out sweetness. Chocolate chip cookies are a perfect example of where milk chocolate won’t bring enough of that robust punch of chocolate, whereas that bitter and semisweet can.
My sugar cookies keep sticking to my rolling pin and cookie cutters. Help!
For rolling, sandwich your dough in between two sheets of parchment, then roll flat. For cutting, dip your cookie cutter in flour first, and press confidently!
I always forget to soften my butter. How can I do it quickly?
Okay here’s a hack I learned when I was a food stylist and would need softened butter fast: Use the microwave. This might seem obvious, but I have very specific instructions for you. Leave the stick of butter in its wrapper and nuke it for 8 second intervals, rotating the stick each time. Do this until the butter is softened.
This is very far from fool proof, so go slow to make sure you don’t end up with a pool of butter in your microwave.
Do I need a cookie press to make spritz cookies?
It does help, and if I had to choose one, it’d be the de Buyer Le Tube. But you don’t need one. You can also use a piping bag and fun tips to make nice shapes.
Are rainbow cookies even cookies?
Honestly? No. They’re actually made up of three layers of cake and fruit preserves. But they’re delicious—and look amazing on a cookie platter, so maybe yes?
Have more holiday entertaining questions? Ask away on our Hotline or drop us a line at 1 (877)-52-HOTLINE.
