Frosted Toffee Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are frosted sugar cookies so dry? ›

Tips for baking soft sugar cookies

If there's too much flour, the cookies will turn out dry and they will not spread. If possible, measure the flour with a food scale. Otherwise, to ensure the exact amount, gently spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level if off with a flat edge.

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.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

Toffee basics

Toffee is a hard candy made by cooking a sugar syrup with butter to the hard crack stage, 300–310°F (149–154°C), and then pouring it out to cool. It can have inclusions or not, and it can be made either very dense and hard or can be lightened by adding baking soda when the candy is almost done cooking .

Avoid storing decorated cookies in the fridge, as it will affect the structure of the icing and taste of the cookie.

Softened butter and melted butter are not the same. Using melted butter will change the texture of whatever you're baking. If you only want the butter to soften for spreading, microwave it on the Defrost setting (30%) in 5-second increments until it's softened as desired.

1. Cookies. Cornstarch does kind of incredible things to cookies. I mean not only does it give them soft centers, prevents them from spreading, and makes them somewhat thick (in a good way), but it also contributes to the chewiness factor, which, in my opinion, is the most important cookie attribute.

The ingredients that make cookies soft do double duty: they add and maintain moisture and they add flavor that develops while the cookies bake. Butter is more than 15% water, so it plays a role in making cookies soft by adding water and fat, which contributes flavor and tenderness.

Cookie temperatures fluctuate, with some recipes as low as 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and a few as high as 425 degrees Fahrenheit, but most recipes land on 375 or 350 to evenly bake the entirety of the cookie.

Refrigerating the dough will give it more structure so the cookies spread less and hold their fork marks through baking. Cooling the dough also ensures that all of the ingredients are the same temperature: they'll bake more evenly and the flavors will meld beautifully. Heat oven to 375°F.

What can go wrong when making toffee? ›

Stirring too quickly or too often can cause the toffee to separate. Moderate the heat as needed – turn it down if the toffee is boiling or cooking too fast so it doesn't burn.

Brittles and toffees accumulate small amounts of acid from the browning reactions that occur during cooking. This is one reason why the baking soda is added at the end of cooking. The soda reacts with the acid to make bubbles, and the syrup foams.

NOTE:[i] Most recipes recommend constant stirring from start to finish to prevent butter and sugar separation. Constant stirring will not hurt the mixture, but I have found it is unnecessary. You will stir the mixture a little as it cooks.

To avoid this, try using as little flour as possible while preparing to roll your dough. Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.

Microwaving them. If you cover your cookies with a wet paper towel and nuke them for a few seconds, they should soften up enough to eat.