Snickerdoodles are a great fall treat, as they taste delicious and fill the house with wonderful aromas as they bake. However, sometimes baking them is a hassle.
Making snickerdoodles is hard enough, but having them come out thin and flat is worse. Among many other reasons, it could be caused by overmixing, not cooling the dough enough, or leaving it to cool over time.
If you want to know how to make the perfect and fluffed-up Snickerdoodle cookies, keep reading!
Reasons for Flat Snickerdoodles
It can be very frustrating to see your snickerdoodle getting flat after all the hard work that you put into it. The following are the most common mistakes that people make when baking snickerdoodles.
Dough Temperature
The temperature of your dough can affect the texture and fluffiness of the cookies. The chilled dough could also help since it will give everything a bit more time to cook before the fat spreads. This creates a more extraordinary uniform baking of the dough and a fluffier cookie.
Cookie recipes often ask you to kick back the dough earlier than baking. This is an essential step that ought to be no longer ignored—chilling the dough earlier than baking may be the distinction between a flat cookie and a fluffy one.
Note: Add flour if the dough is overly sticky like you have trouble forming a ball with it sticky. Feel free to use a little flour until you get a perfect consistency.
Overmixing Sugar, Butter, and Brown Sugar
It is important to ensure that sugar, butter, and brown sugar mix well but should not overmix at the same time. People find it hard to draw a line between mixing and overmixing. Don’t kill the dough. Just mix enough to incorporate all the ingredients.
Usually, the recipe would say we’ve to mix until the ingredients come up in a creamy texture. So to attain that texture, mixing two or three minutes after the ingredients are incorporated will do just fine.
Even though you’ve mixed your sugar and butter well, still your mixture doesn’t get that Creamy texture?!
That’s probably because of the butter temperature. Many recipes would suggest you use softened butter, so make sure that you don’t use your butter straight out of the fridge. The problem with using the butter straight out of the fridge is that we’ve to mix more to incorporate it with the other ingredients, so eventually leading to overmixing. Taking the butter out of the fridge one or two hours before beginning to bake would do the job just fine.
Sometimes substituting 1/2 of the butter with those butter-flavored Crisco sticks (if the recipe has mentioned 1 cup of butter, use 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of Crisco) works too.
Note: replacing brown sugar or adding white sugar can also make your Snickerdoodles spread out.
The temperature of the oven
The oven temperature decides whether your Snickerdoodle is going to be a flat one or a fluffy one of puffy one. If the temperature is way too low, then there’s a greater possibility for your Snickerdoodle to end up flat. As the butter will melt, the dough will spread out before the cookies begin to bake, i.e., the baking process is slow.
The other extreme is when the temperature is hot, it’ll create a more puffy Snickerdoodle as every incorporated ingredient will be baked before the cookie can take form.
There is no definite temperature as every oven has different settings and heat properties. Batch testing works to find your perfect temperature.
Expiration date
Always double-check the ingredient’s expiration date as they can affect the consistency and taste and even be unhealthy. Expired rising agents would have lost their power, which will not help the cookies to fluff.
How do I fix my flat Snickerdoodle?
If your first batch came out to be flat out of the oven, try adding one or two tablespoons of flour to the leftover dough and give it a try. Sometimes the problem can also be on your baking sheet, and it would’ve been too hot. Always measure your ingredients precisely. Slightly underbaking the cookies can will make the snickerdoodle soft and chewy. Sifting your flour can make a difference in the softness and fluffiness of the cookie.
Tips: always use the mentioned cream of tartar as it’ll prevent crystallizing the sugar.
Best Snickerdoodle Recipe
Preppy Kitchen’s recipe results in a beautiful brown and has a great rich flavor in it compared to The food network and America’s test kitchen.
- 1 cup butter at room temperature, 226g
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar 100g
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar 150g
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 1 egg yolk at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda 5mL
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 3/4 cup flour 330g
For the Cinnamon Sugar
- 1/4 cup Sugar 50g
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
Per Serving: 92 calories; protein 1g; carbohydrates 12.4g; fat 4.3g; cholesterol 12.8mg; sodium 55.1mg.
How to know whether the Snickerdoodles are done baking?
You can determine whether your snickerdoodle cookies are ready by lifting the edge slightly. When it lifts off the cookie sheet, it’s probably done!
Why is my Snickerdoodle flat and not fluffy?
If the butter is too soft and watery, you’ll end up overmixing the ingredients. Which will lead to flat cookies.
Conclusion
There can be many reasons why your Snickerdoodles turn out to be flat. Temperature plays an important role in every single step in the making. The dough must be cooled enough, the butter should not be straight out of the fridge, and the oven’s temperature should be perfect. Hope it was helpful, and comment below your experience and queries. Happy baking!