Even a couple minutes too long can result in hard or burned cookies. Never walk away from the oven when you only have a couple of minutes to go on your baking time. Hot cookie sheets will cause the bottoms of your cookies to overbake and they will also cause your cookies to spread flat. Also, let your cookie sheets cool before putting your next round of dough on them. “Transfer cookies to your counter or cooling racks as soon as they come out of the oven because they will continue to cook on the sheet – and potentially overcook,” recommends Matheus. When your cookies are done baking, get them off the hot cookie sheet. Just make sure you increase baking time by a couple of minutes or you will end up with gooey underbaked cookies. “When you bake at a lower temperature, you will get that perfect cookie with a soft center and crisp exterior,” she adds.

Turn your oven down 50 degrees from what your recipe recommends. If the balls of dough you put on the sheets are all the same size, your cookies will bake evenly and be consistent in size, making you look even more like an expert baker. Your whole batch of cookies will bake and look consistent if you use a small ice cream scoop (for standard or large cookies) or large melon baller (for mini-cookies). “When dough is consistently the same temperature,” she adds, “all the cookies will be baked evenly.” You can refrigerate the whole batch of dough or you can refrigerate individual prebaked cookies on the baking sheets. Matheus suggests sticking cookie dough in the refrigerator. Room temperature eggs will help dissolve the sugar into the wet ingredients. Warm butter will cause a cookie to spread flat instead of holding some height.

START WITH COLD BUTTERĬold butter is going to give cookies a better texture and shape.

We follow the same formula today that Debbie Field’s created in 1977,” says Matheus, “and since then we have also bought the same ingredients.” If you want to-die-for cookies, buy high-quality ingredients so your final product will look and taste top-rate. Fields uses only the best ingredients – real butter, perfect walnuts, proprietary vanilla and quality chocolate chips, to name a few – and we never skimp.

Cookies must die tips