Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What does adding more brown sugar do to cookies? ›

Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.

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.

Regarding the extra acidity of dark brown sugar, acid activates baking soda, so if you use dark brown sugar to make, say, cookies, your cookies will rise higher, but only slightly.

Pastry Flour: An unbleached flour made from soft wheat, with protein levels somewhere between cake flour and all-purpose flour (8 to 9 percent). Pastry flour strikes the ideal balance between flakiness and tenderness, making it perfect for pies, tarts and many cookies.

The primary purpose of vanilla extract is to add flavour to baked goods. Lacking it, baked goods tend to have a bland and boring taste. Vanilla extract can also contribute moisture to create a soft and fluffy texture.

Baking recipes typically call for unsalted butter because the amount of salt in salted butter varies depending on the brand – there is no “industry standard.” For example, if you use one brand of salted butter in a recipe, and we use another, our baked goods could end up tasting very different from one other.

“Cornstarch is a game changer for cookie baking,” confirms Brian Hart Hoffman, editor in chief of Bake from Scratch. “You can count on [it for] a softer and more tender crumb.”

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.

So, when you mix corn syrup into your cookie batter, all of that moisture will make and keep your baked cookies deliciously tender. The texture of cookies benefits from corn syrup as well. As you combine your ingredients to make your cookie batter, corn syrup will pull some of the surrounding air into your batter.

Why do snickerdoodles use cream of tartar? ›

Cream of tartar is an acidic by-product of fermenting grapes into wine. Bakers primarily use it to stabilize meringues and whipped creams, and to make traditional cookie recipes like snickerdoodles.

Composed of 20% potassium, it is a byproduct of winemaking. Cream of tartar is praised for multiple potential health benefits, from migraine relief to help quitting smoking. Yet, the only claim that's backed by science is its effect as constipation relief.

Baking Powder

Baking powder is a good cream of tartar substitute for cookies because it is synergistic with baking soda. You'll need 1.5x the amount of baking powder substitute for the cream of tartar called for in the recipe. Baking powder is a great cream of tartar replacement because it doesn't impart any flavor.

Using brown sugar will result in a denser, moister cookie. Brown sugar is also hygroscopic (more so than granulated sugar) and will therefore also attract and absorb the liquid in the dough.

What happens if you increase the amount of sugar called for in cookies? Conversely, when you increase the sugar in cookies, you'll get cookies that spread more and have an ultra moist and chewy texture in addition to a sweeter flavor.

Brown sugar is often used in baking for the flavor and moistness it adds to baked goods. The molasses in brown sugar also helps to prevent cookies and cakes from drying out. It generally makes baked goods softer and moister.

Cornstarch gives the cookies that ultra soft consistency we all love. Plus, it helps keep the cookies beautifully thick. We use the same trick when making shortbread cookies. Egg yolk: Another way to promise a super chewy chocolate chip cookie is to use an extra egg yolk.