Should butter be melted for cookies? (2024)

FAQs

Do you need to melt butter for cookies? ›

Using melted butter in cookies helps you achieve a similar fudgy-yet-cooked texture and prevents any unwanted cakiness. Instead of the rise coming from both chemical and physical leavening agents (baking soda/powder + creamed butter), it now comes almost exclusively from chemical agents alone.

You will need to experiment with your recipe and see how different fats affect the final cookies. Can you use melted butter instead of softened for cookies? Yes, you can. But some recipes say to melt the butter.

It should be soft enough that your finger will make an imprint with zero resistance, but not so warm that the butter looks shiny or greasy (or is melted completely, which happens around 90°F). Butter that is too warm won't aerate properly when beaten with sugar, leading to a decidedly un-fluffy result.

And if the butter is too soft, your cookies could spread and not hold their cute little cookie shapes and your cakes could be too dense. If it's not soft enough, you will have chunks of butter that don't mix well with the sugar and therefore no air bubbles to help it rise.

Using butter in cookies

“You can mechanically shove air into it by creaming. Warm butter is not able to hold onto it, so you're going to get a denser dough.” When using warmer or melted butter, cookies will struggle to lift and lighten, resulting in a cakier texture, like brownies.

Your Butter Came Straight From the Fridge

This relates to the issue of creaming, because cold butter is more difficult to cream. Thus, if your butter is too cold, your cookies will be denser, and they will likely not spread enough in the pan when you bake them. In general, you want your butter to be cool, but not cold.

Use it in: cakes and soft cookies. For best results: make sure butter is fully at room temperature. If you're in a hurry, cut butter into tiny pieces and it will quickly soften. Cold butter is ideal for baked goods that should be crisp.

Chocolate chip cookies made with softened butter vs melted butter. In terms of flavor and texture, there's no difference. The cookies made with melted butter spread a tad more, but this difference is even less after the dough has been chilled (for a minimum of 1 hour).

In the case of pie dough, cold butter steams in the oven, creating the air pockets that make for flaky layers; melted butter, on the other hand, creates a tender, more shortbread-like crust—buttery and delicious all the same, but firmer and more compact.

How long does it take to soften butter? Setting out chilled butter at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes prior to use gives it time to soften. The same approach works for frozen butter, though it can take a couple of hours.

How much soften butter for cookies? ›

Sally's Baking Addiction recommends heating a glass measuring cup full of water for 2 minutes in the microwave until very hot, before removing it and sliding in a bowl or plate with the sliced butter. She says the butter should be ready after about 10 minutes hanging out in the microwave.

Pour hot water into a ceramic or glass cup or bowl (something that can fit over your butter). After a few minutes, dump the water out of the vessel and quickly cover your butter. The heat from the cup will soften your butter in just a few minutes.

You Can Make Most Cookies with Cold, Hard Butter.

Why This Happened: Melting the butter first means it will mix more easily with the flour making the gluten form more than softened butter. More gluten = more chew. So a melted butter cookie will have a bit more chew. But they will spread more since the butter was already a liquid.

For baking purposes, the Test Kitchen recommends using unsalted butter so you can better control the amount of salt that goes into the recipe. Salted butter is best for serving at the table with bread or to flavor a dish, like mashed potatoes.

Double Your Yolks Most cookie recipes call for at least one egg. You can try omitting the white of each egg, which tends to dry out when baked, and replacing it with an additional yolk. Plus, egg yolks have more fat than egg whites, which helps to keep your cookies moist and chewy.

In just about all recipes, butter should be cooled down to just above room temperature before you use it. Depending on how much butter you've melted and how hot you made it while melting, this could take anywhere from 1 – 5 minutes.

Butter is room temperature when you can gently press it and make a small indention with your finger. Your touch should be light and should not sink in too far into the butter. It should feel slightly cool still, not warm, and look smooth, not greasy.

It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for refrigerated butter to soften to room temperature. Speed things up by cutting the butter into 1-inch cubes: Take a stick of butter and halve it lengthwise. Flip the butter on its side and halve it lengthwise again.

How to Bring Butter to Room Temperature. Sit out: Allow the butter to sit out on the counter for about 1-2 hours before beginning your recipe. The amount of time depends on the weather and how cool you keep your kitchen. Test it: To test the butter, poke it with your finger.

Does melted butter cause flat cookies? ›

If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here's what's happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.

The ingredients you use and how you shape your cookies both play an important role in whether your cookies turn out crispy or chewy. The type of flour and sugar you use, if your cookie dough contains eggs, and whether you use melted or softened butter all factor into the crispy-chewy equation, too.

They go from soft to hard because they start to dry out, and it begins as soon as you pull them from the oven. (Yikes.) Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying.

Always use room-temperature ingredients unless the recipe calls for cold or melted butter. If the butter is too cold, it won't cream properly with sugar, which can impact the softness and fluffiness of your cake or cookies.

Place butter in microwave-safe bowl. Place bowl in microwave and cover bowl with small plate. Heat butter at 50 percent power until melted, 30 to 60 seconds (longer if melting a lot of butter). Watch butter and stop microwave as soon as butter has melted.

If it's not soft enough, the butter won't cream well with the sugar (frequently the first step of baking recipes); it simply won't get to the right light and fluffy consistency. And that could result in dense cake layers that fall flat.

If used in baking recipes, overly softened butter will create frothy air bubbles that will eventually collapse. When the air bubbles collapse, you'll be left with a greasy batter that will bake into heavy, dense, and flat baked goods.

The most common reason that cookies are tough is that the cookie dough was mixed too much. When flour is mixed into the dough, gluten begins to form. Gluten helps hold baked goods together, but too much gluten can lead to tough cookies.

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.

Most cookie recipes call for beating room-temperature butter. At a temperature between 70 and 72 degrees F, butter is soft enough to incorporate air, but not so soft that it will melt immediately in the oven and result in super-thin cookies.

How long can you let butter sit out to soften? ›

According to the USDA, butter is safe at room temperature. But if it's left out for several days at room temperature, it can turn rancid causing off flavors. The USDA does not recommend leaving it out more than one to two days.

Cookies made with only butter may not rise as much and may spread a bit more, but the edges will be crispier and will have a rich buttery taste. Cookies made with only shortening will result in a cookie that bakes higher and holds its shape better during baking.

Baking with oil produces moist and tender baked goods.

Because oil is liquid at room temperature, it produces exceptionally moist baked goods. Butter, on the other hand, is solid at room temp, and therefore baked goods made with it are (arguably) a tad more dry.

Found in the instructions section of most cookie and cake recipes, creaming butter and sugar is an important step in baking. "Creaming" refers to the process of incorporating sugar and softened butter into a uniform, fluffy, and smooth mixture in which the sugar is dissolved and evenly dispersed.

Most cookie recipes call for beating room-temperature butter. At a temperature between 70 and 72 degrees F, butter is soft enough to incorporate air, but not so soft that it will melt immediately in the oven and result in super-thin cookies.

In terms of flavor and texture, there's no difference. The cookies made with melted butter spread a tad more, but this difference is even less after the dough has been chilled (for a minimum of 1 hour).

The theory behind softened butter is pretty simple. When it is combined with the other ingredients in the mixer you are creaming it instead of just blending or combining it. When you cream butter it allows for small air pockets to be formed within the dough. This helps keep your cookies fluffy and cook evenly.

How long does it take to soften butter? Setting out chilled butter at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes prior to use gives it time to soften.

To properly cream butter and sugar, you want to start with softened butter. Chilled butter is too hard to break down and fully blend with the sugar. Overly soft or melted butter will whip up into frothy air bubbles, which eventually collapse into a greasy, wet batter and bake into a heavy and soggy baked good.

In the case of pie dough, cold butter steams in the oven, creating the air pockets that make for flaky layers; melted butter, on the other hand, creates a tender, more shortbread-like crust—buttery and delicious all the same, but firmer and more compact.

What is the best butter for baking cookies? ›

For baking purposes, the Test Kitchen recommends using unsalted butter so you can better control the amount of salt that goes into the recipe. Salted butter is best for serving at the table with bread or to flavor a dish, like mashed potatoes.