Orange Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes cookies fluffy instead of flat? ›

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.

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

The flavor is not as concentrated so expect to use more orange juice to get the orange flavor. 1 teaspoon of orange zest = 2 tablespoons of orange juice.

Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.

Scoop Tall Mounds of Cookie Dough

Similarly to the tip above, shaping tall mounds of dough instead of balls or discs before baking can prevent too much spreading and result in thicker cookies.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

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. When butter is melted, it coats the flour more evenly, resulting in cookies that are chewier and denser.

All-Purpose Flour: The Versatile Choice

All-purpose flour is the most commonly used flour in cookie recipes due to its moderate protein content (usually around 10-12%).

What is the most important thing in cookies? ›

Flour is the main ingredient that provides structure in a cookie – without it, there would be no cookie! The gluten in flour forms a web of sorts – the framework that catches the air bubbles/gasses given off during rising. This helps provide the structure.

Ever wonder why your fresh squeezed navel orange juice tastes bitter after its been sitting around for a little bit? Blame limonin. Limonin is a bitter compound found in most citrus but especially in navels oranges that increases in concentration the longer it sits.

Check package to make sure what you used contained at least 70% fat. A spread with less fat, diet "margarines" or spreads in tubs contain have too much water. The water creates steam, causing the cookies to puff.

The most common culprit behind non-spreading cookies is too much flour. This may seem counterintuitive—after all, isn't flour a key ingredient in baking? Yes, but if you add too much flour, your cookies won't spread as they bake.

“To keep cookies soft, store them in an airtight container and not in a cookie jar,” Amanda recommends.