Homemade cookies are a yummy dessert that virtually everyone loves for any occasion! Try these easy tips that will help you make homemade cookies easier!
10 Tips To Making Homemade Cookies Easier!
- If you keep having trouble with your homemade drop cookies spreading badly then try using solid shortening (like Crisco) instead of margarine or butter. Not only does this help with the baking but also with the budget and I have yet to see a difference in the favor. As a matter of fact most of the old favorite recipes were originally made with shortening but we have changed them because it is easier to throw in a stick of butter then to measure the shortening.
- Speaking of measuring shortening, here are two easy ways to do that. First you can use an ice cream scoop, which is equal to 1/4 cup, or you can use a 2 cup measuring cup with the water method. This is where you fill the cup with 1 cup of water. If you need a cup of shortening then add enough shortening to the water in the cup to make the water rise to the 2 cup mark. If you need 1/2 cup then add enough so the water line raises to 1 1/2 cups etc. After you get your amount measured just scoop it out of the water and use.
- Here’s another idea for homemade cookies: When baking bar cookies or brownies, line the pan with foil. This not only makes clean up easier but you can lift them out of the pan when cooled and they are easier to cut. I don’t mind making the cookies — it’s the clean up I hate, so little things like this inspire me more to bake.
- For Christmas cookies here is a tip that will save you time when December comes. Starting now, whenever you bake a batch of homemade cookies, only bake a couple of sheets. Take the batter that is left and drop it on wax paper laid on a cookie sheet as if you were going to bake them, but instead put them into the freezer. Once frozen, put them in a freezer bag to keep until you need them.
- Closer to Christmas you will have a variety of homemade cookies that you can pop into the oven when unexpected company comes or when you discover you forgot to make treats for school. If nothing else it will save on your cookie baking time closer to Christmas.
- Most homemade cookie doughs can be frozen and if wrapped well will keep fine for 3-4 months until Christmas so get ahead. If you are unsure about what kinds of homemade cookies can or can’t be frozen go to the grocery store and see what kinds they have in their refrigerator and freezer sections. You can freeze the same kinds, including chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies and others.
- Bake your favorite pan of brownies and cut them into squares. Take a small cookie cutter, cut out the center and fill with frosting. Use a cookie cutter for each different holiday; a heart for Valentine’s Day, a four leaf clover for St. Patrick’s Day or an egg or a rabbit for Easter. You can also use the appropriate color of frosting for that holiday.
- Make Rice Krispy treats. Using food coloring, color them red, green or pastel — once again, the colors for that holiday. When they are done, use a cookie cutter to cut them out into hearts, clovers, eggs, rabbits etc.
- Make No-Bake Cookies for when you are in a hurry. Kids love them just as much!
- If you are afraid that you will use too much flour for rolling out your cookies try rolling them out with powdered sugar instead.
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Another cookie tip: if you’re like me and don’t enjoy crispy, crunchy cookies, but your recipes keep turning out this way, use bread flour. Also, brown sugar (real brown sugar, not light brown sugar) helps with chewiness. If you go to Youtube and search for “Alton Brown cookies”, you can find his entire cookie episode broken up into segments.
Jill, I have a couple of cookie recipes you might like.
Corn Meal Cookies
1 cup shortening
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 cup raisins, chopped
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup corn meal
Cream shortening and sugar, add eggs and lemon extract. Beat well. Dredge raisins with 1/2 cup of flour and add. Add remaining flour and other dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Drop by teaspoons onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten out with a fork. Bake 10-12 minutes at 400 degrees.
VARIATIONS:Increase raisins to 1 cup and add 1/2 cup finely chopped nuts.
Omit raisins and add 1 cup chopped dried apricots.
Condensed Milk Kisses
1 can OR 1-1/3 cups sweetened condensed milk
3 cups shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
Combine ingredients and drop by teaspoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan while hot.
VARIATIONS: Fruit Kisses
Use 2 cups chopped dried fruits such as raisins, dates, or figs.
Nut Kisses
Use 1 cup nut meats such as peanuts, walnuts or pecans
Peanut Butter Kisses
Use 1/2 cup peanut butter. The peanut butter may be combined with coconut or cereal flakes.
Any mixture of fruit and nuts, cereal and nuts, cereal and fruit, may be used, taking care that there is sufficient condensed milk to bind ingredients together.
Oh yum Bea. It is a good thing I’m not on a diet because you would be leading me into major temptation. : )
Bea
We made your coconut kisses last night & everyone liked them! I made half without add-ins & then half I added walnuts & chopped dates. How many should that recipe make? I am not sure, but I think I made them a bit big. On some of them the middles were pretty gooie while the edges were browned & crisp. Thanks!
Ms.Bea:
TY for sharing your recipe for the cookies & the variations…THEY WERE DELICIOUS!!!!!!!! 8 D
They were also easy for me to make as well.
TY again Madame. 8 )
Jill, I like cookies, and I really like the “trick” you taught me, through this site, of making cookie dough, and then putting most into the freezer. I do this, and bake maybe 3 cookies at a time, so I don’t overeat them. Then when I want more, I just take some more cookie dough out of the freezer, and bake 3 more cookies. That way I always have freshly baked cookies and no tempations to eat more than the ones already baked. Yum Yum. Thanks for teaching that!
Yes good way to do it Bea.
i love homemade cookies .. esp with icy cold milk .. my son wanted me to make homemade sugar cookies .. and i told him i would once i got the stuff .. i have been buying the betty crocker cookie mix .. they are pretty good .. i prefer the homemade cookies but this is as about as homemade as i am going to get these days .. :D ..
Andrea, You know I’m not really sure how many cookies the recipe is suppose to make. I usually use a heaping teaspoon to make my cookies, which is a little bigger than most recipes call for. Because I make them a little bigger, I watch them closely when baking, because i never know for sure when they will be done. You can usually tell when they brown, or sometimes I will taste one to see if they are done. Glad you liked the Coconut Kisses. It is an OLD RECIPE.
another quick cookie recipe is to use a cake mix of your choice, 1/2 cup of soft marg. and 1 egg. If it seems too thick for cookie dough, add a little water. Add choc chips or other add-ins of your choice. Lemon cake mix cookies with lemon-powdered sugar glaze are yummy!
Heidi, Those lemon cookies sound yummy and refreshing.
Since I don’t like using shortening because of the health deficite involved, I add a bit more flour to the recipe. I then bake one cookie to see if it spreads. If not, I know I’ve added enough flour. (I live in Colorado Springs, so the altitude always affects my baking in some way or another. This is one of the ways I’ve learned to adapt some of my recipes.)
When I mix up the dough for drop cookies, I only bake half the dough. I pack the other half into a freezer container and freeze. Then a week or two later I bake up the other half. (Just thaw overnight in the fridge.) It keeps me from eating them all at once. (I’m the cookie monster in our house!)
I tried recently making cookies from cake mix, and they were hardly worth eating…. I checked several online sites for recipes, and most were similar. I used a good cake mix too. Any ideas?
Not sure what to tell you Martha. If you could be more specific on what was actually wrong with them. Did they not taste good, was the texture bad, did they not cook right etc.
I think cake mix cookies are not as good as homemade-from-scratch, but they are better than store bought cookies. And they are so quick and easy. Besides, if it’s sweet, my kids will eat it!
When making cookies that require eggs, crack the egg into the cup first and then place in another container. Then measure the shortening into that same cup and it will slide right out.
I have a recipe for cookies using a cake mix. Add 2/3 cup of quick-cooking oats, 1/2 cup butter, melted and 1 egg to cake mix and stir. you can add anything that you want to that dough and bake 350 degrees on ungreased baking sheet 10 to 12 min. I made these for a group of children 1st through 6th grade and had rave reviews.
Love your web and videos. I beg you pls stop using margarine and crisco. This
is why heart disease is so rampant. These are man-made and do more harm to the
heart. Real butter and animal fat needs to be used. Your health comes first. If
you do not have your health what good is it to save a dollar that does you harm.
Love and want to continue to hear from you.
Don’t worry I know all the ins and outs on proper eating and then some. I have also lived long enough to have watched each generation come up with all their different no nos on food. I remember about 40 years ago a young women sitting across from me and almost quoting you word for word telling I needed to stay away from butter because it was so bad for my health. I don’t mean to treat these things lightly but so far over the years I have been told to stay away from milk, eggs, sugar, butter, margarine, bacon grease, lard (both of which are animal fat), canned foods, frozen foods, red meat, tuna, cooked vegetables, MSG, anything with gluten in it, anything which is not organically grown, anything that is not grown in my own garden and that is just the tip of the iceberg. If I stayed away from everything that I was told to I would be down to eating carrots and then I could only eat them cooked and not too many because I could turn orange from that.
My parents and their generation has been one of the healthiest and have lived longer than any other generation has in a long time and the interesting thing about that is they were the first generation to grow up with preservatives, margarine, foods grown with pesticides and all the sweets they wanted. My generation was from the hippy era when if you didn’t eat alfalfa sprouts and margarine you weren’t eating healthy. Yet once again they are worried because we are living so long and what to do with us because of that.Then there is my children’s generation who have been raised with the butter only, no sugar, no preservatives, no pesticides and yet they are one of the most unhealthy generations I think I have ever seen. So many more of their generation is over weight suffering from diabetes, have every allergy known to man plus some, are very physically unfit. Hummm and they are the ones who who have pushed healthy eating more than any others. They also have access to much more fresh food and yet they seem to be going down hill fast.
I personally think it is because everyone is stressing so much about everything including their food. We ate everything in moderation, didn’t worry ourselves sick about what we were eating and were so grateful for what we did have and never complained if it wasn’t sugar free, fat free, gluten free, meat free, egg free…. We were just grateful for what we had and we were healthy. It wasn’t because we were worried about saving a dollar – we just didn’t have a dollar to spend and not credit card to charge it on and usually didn’t expect someone else to help us.
I really believe stress like worrying over every bite we put in our mouth all day long is causing more damage to our health than anything. People get stressed so they eat more that they should even of healthy food and gain weight, they smoke to relax themselves and they drink too much. All are things which cause really bad health problems. I have a feeling 10-15 years down the road they will find that this generation agonizing over everything and the stress from it caused way more damage to people’s health than what they ate. I know of a woman who is a vegetarian and very much on a healthy diet who just recently had to be taken to the doctor. Her problem the doctor said she was sick because she was so stressed.
We need to consider all things and relax a little more or the thing we fear the most(poor health) and stress over every little bit, will stop us in our tracks.
Another idea for measuring shortening. I line my measuring cup with plastic wrap and fill the cup and it comes right out, no mess in the cup.
I have a question: Can you use a cookie recipe to roll out and turn it into a bar cookie????
I have favorite recipes and the grown kids do but I have gotten lay about rolling out cookie dough
Thanks
Yes Pamela you can in a lot of cases. Just pat it into a pan. I would grease the pan well or better yet use parchment paper. You might just need to try it and see but I do know things like most chocolate chip cookies can be made into a bar and most basic sugar cookies are just like short bread which is baked in a pan.