Cookies

Preparation

1. Bland

   Step 1

   After baking (and tasting) the cookies, try brushing with a thin glaze made of confectioners’ sugar and milk and sprinkle with small amounts of anise seed, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, or nutmeg. Or spread them with peanut butter and top with cake decorations. Or make sandwich cookies: use any kind of jam or fudge for a filling. Do you have chocolate chips on hand? Melt them and spread on for filling.

   Step 2

   Or brush the tops of bland cookies with one egg white, beaten until foamy with 1 tablespoon good sweet sherry, and sprinkle with slivered almonds. Broil for 1 minute to set the nuts.

   Step 3

   Or glue a flat chocolate wafer to the middle of the cookies with a dot of frosting, or by laying the chocolate wafers on the cookies and putting them (carefully) into a 400°F oven for just a minute to let the wafers melt slightly and adhere themselves to the cookies.

2. Burned (or burning)

   Step 4

   Cookies made on brown (generally nonstick) baking sheets and/or baking sheets with sides are more likely to burn. Next time, use the flat shiny ones.

   Step 5

   If the sheet is half or less full of cookies, it may absorb too much heat and get too hot. Put an inverted baking pan on the empty half.

   Step 6

   If you have have cookies with burned bottoms, cut or grate the bottoms off; the tops will taste fine. But they won’t be pretty. So if you prefer, crumble them up and mix them in ice cream or crush them into crumbs and use them to make a pie shell. (And fill the shell with the cookied ice cream to make a double cookie ice cream pie.)

3. Crisp

   Step 7

   Cookies that are too crisp will usually decrisp themselves if stored in an airtight container for at least 24 hours. Adding a couple slices of apple or a slice of bread can help.

4. Crumbly dough

   Step 8

   If the cookie dough is too crumbly but you don’t want to add more moisture, try letting the dough stand at room temperature for 30 minutes, covered with a slightly dampened cloth. If that doesn’t work, ask yourself why you don’t want to add more moisture. A tablespoon or so of milk can be a very helpful thing.

5. Hard

   Step 9

   Cookies that are hard will soften if stored in an airtight container with something from which they can absorb moisture. A glass of water does nicely; so does a slice or two of fresh bread.

6. Spreading problems

   Step 10

   If cookie dough doesn’t spread out satisfactorily before or during baking, use something cold and smooth to flatten out each cookie with a rotary motion. Suggested cold and smooth thing number 1: a spoon dipped in cold water. Suggested cold and smooth thing number 2: an ice cube wrapped in a smooth cloth or plastic wrap. If, however, it spreads too much, the problem may well be that the baking sheet is too warm. For the next batch, turn the sheet over and run cold water on the back (no need to dry it). Then put the cookies to cook on the other side. If your cookies are still spreading too much, try one of these options: Add a bit more flour to your dough. Or refrigerate your dough for an hour or so and try again.

7. Stuck to baking sheet

   Step 11

   Run the baking sheet over a hot burner on the range. Or wrap the whole works in a towel as it comes hot from the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes. Sometimes greasing the spatula helps.

8. Stuck to hands

   Step 12

   Wash your hands in cold water. Or juggle a handful of ice cubes for as long as you can bear it. The dough won’t stick.

9. Stuck to rolling pin

   Step 13

   If you don’t want to add more flour to the dough by flouring the pin, chill the pin in the freezer and the dough won’t stick.