Tips on How to Make the Perfect Holiday Cookie

It’s not a lie when we say baking a perfect holiday cookie is not easy. There are just too many ways it could go wrong. The cookie could come out too brown, crumbly, or too dense. You never know.

The tiniest slip of the hand when making the batter or slightest mishap during the baking process could ruin the entire cookie. Therefore, we bring you some tips to create the perfect holiday cookie.

Know what cookie you want to make

There are many different types of cookies when it comes to holiday cookies. Before you start to make your holiday cookie, you need to know what you will use the cookie for.

Before making cookies make sure that the people consuming these cookies do not have any allergies from the ingredients you have used. If you’re making a gingerbread house, you want to bake gingerbread cookies.

If you wish to shape cookies with icing, you want to bake sugar cookies. Sugar cookies need to be cut using cookie cutters. You can easily find holiday-themed cookie cutters on websites such as flycalf.

Know your audience

Do you want to impress the children in your house with the cookies or do you want to make them for the adults? If you are baking these cookies for your office colleagues, make sure these cookies are classics.

Decorate them in a sophisticated way, but at the same time they should give the festive vibe. If you are baking them for a party, get on board and decorate them just the way you want; make it festive and fun!

If you plan on baking these cookies for children, try to include them in the process. Instead of decorating the cookies yourself, give the children the ingredients needed for decoration and let them create them there masterpieces.

How to prepare ingredients

Instead of getting pre-made chocolate chips, make them yourself. Cut up chocolate bars into small chocolate chips, this way you can make them out of your favorite chocolate and can get chocolate chips in various sizes!

Soften the butter

The density of your cookies depends on the temperature of the butter you use. If your butter is too cold or too hot, it will render with the number of air bubbles the batter has, causing your cookie to come out dense.

Before you start mixing the ingredients for your holiday cookie, leave the butter out at room temperature for a couple of hours. You can also cut the cold butter into smaller pieces and leave it at room temperature to soften the butter faster. Creaming the butter with sugar also helps to achieve a better density for your holiday cookie.

Measure everything precisely

The slightest mistake in measuring out the ingredients before making your batter can make a difference in the result of your holiday cookies.

Always use a measuring cup regardless of the element being dry or wet. Use a dry measuring cup for dry ingredients and liquid measuring cups such as a glass with a spout for liquid ingredients. Make sure to level the top of the measuring cup before incorporating that ingredient.

Do not over-mix the batter.

By mixing the right amount, you ensure the cookie has the proper density. If you beat too much air into the cookie, it won’t be dense at all and will collapse as soon as it is out of the oven. If you don’t beat enough air into it, the cookie will be too complex and dense.

If you are following a recipe, the mixing time will be given in it. Follow the instructions precisely to achieve the perfect density for your holiday cookie. Ask your family to help you so that you do not overburden yourself and ruin your cookies.

Chill the dough properly.

If the recipe you’re following requires the cookie dough to be cooled, please follow the instructions properly and cool the dough down before baking. This adds firmness to the dough and helps it spread more evenly rather than become a puddle of holiday cookie in your baking tray.

Preheat the oven at the right temperature

Every oven is different. Some cook quicker, some heat up quicker. You should know your own oven before you start baking and preheat the range accordingly.

There’s a fine line between under-baked cookies and over-baked cookies. In order to achieve the perfect cookies, you need to nail the temperature and the time you bake your holiday cookies.

Don’t forget to use parchment paper.

Nothing is worse than everything going smoothly, only for your cookies to be stuck to the baking sheet because you forgot to use parchment paper. All the hard work goes down the drain when you have to scrape your holiday cookies off a baking tray.

Not only does parchment paper prevent your holiday cookies from being stuck to the baking tray, but they prevent the cookie from over-browning, acting as a layer of protection for the cookie. Also, parchment papers can be recycled as they can be used until and unless they are completely worn out.

One batch at a time

If you are short on time, you can skip this one, but if you have the time and want the perfect cookies for the holidays, then it is highly recommended to bake your cookies one batch at a time.

The placement of this batch should be right in the center of the oven, so it receives an even amount of heat from all sides hence baking evenly from all sides as well. Make sure you give time to your baking sheet to cool before you place a new batch on it. If your baking sheet is still warm, the cookie dough will melt when placed on the sheet.

Cool your cookies

Remember to cool your cookies down before removing them from the baking tray or before you begin to ice them. If the cookies are too hot, the heat could melt the icing, causing nothing but a massive mess in your kitchen, and they could also simply just break apart if not cooled properly.

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