What’s Wrong With Puffy Cookies?
Ever baked cookies expecting them to be perfectly round with just the slightest rise, only to find that they look like puffy scones instead? This post will teach you how to fix puffy cookies—especially puffy chocolate chip cookies—for a flawless bake every time!
A Quick Cheat Sheet On How To Fix Puffy Cookies
Here’s everything that could potentially cause puffy cookies and how to fix it. Scroll down to learn more about each issue!
- You didn’t measure the ingredients—especially the flour!—right.
- You reduced the sugar in the recipe.
- If baking the cookies from frozen, you didn’t thaw the dough.
- If using brown butter, you didn’t add extra liquid to the dough to help the cookies spread.
Puffy Versus Cakey Cookies
What’s the difference between puffy and cakey cookies? Sometimes, you WANT a cookie to be a little cakey. I’m thinking of recipes like these Nutty, Chewy, Toasted Brown Butter Snickerdoodles or these Ube Crinkle Cookies.
Puffy cookies are a different story. It’s a bummer to bake a chocolate chip cookie, only to find that they come out looking like scones: tall but also compact, with barely any spread and none of the wonderful chewy and crispy textures that come with the best cookies.
My Perfect Cookie: Bakery-Style, Chewy Centers, Crispy Edges
My ideal cookie texture is perfectly chewy in the middle with crispy edges. These are usually the kind of cookies that are relatively flat and at least 3 inches wide—the kind you see at professional bakeries. No puffy or cakey cookies, please! If I wanted a baked good that was puffy or cakey, I’d probably eat a scone instead.
Below are some of my favorite bakery style cookies with chewy centers and crispy edges—but be sure to check out my full collection of cookie recipes on Hummingbird High!
Snickerdoodle Recipe Without Cream of Tartar
This snickerdoodle recipe makes snickerdoodles that are soft and chewy in the middle, yet crispy and lightly puffed around the edges. The best part? Unlike most traditional snickerdoodle recipes, this recipe does NOT use cream of tartar. The recipe uses baking powder instead! As a result, it’s likely that you already have all the ingredients you need to make these cookies at home!
Lavender Earl Grey Cookies Recipe
My Best Easy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (No Stand Mixer Or Chilling Required!)
My Best Easy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe makes cookies that are chewy and fudgy in the center, while crispy on the edges. The cookie dough only takes 5 minutes to make since you don’t need to use a stand mixer or chill the dough.
Now Let’s Troubleshoot (a.k.a. How To Fix Puffy Cookies)
Help! My cookies came out too puffy. They didn’t sink after baking and don’t look flat like yours. What did I do wrong?
1. You didn’t measure the ingredients properly.
If you used cup measures as opposed to weight measures, there’s a larger chance your cookies will come out puffy.
There’s a LOT of variation in how people use measuring cups. Somebody who scoops ingredients into a measuring cup and packs it down as they go will have a cup that has way more ingredients than somebody who simply scoops the flour into a cup and levels it off as its filled. This is why bakers love measuring by weight with a digital scale instead—it’s much more reliable and completely eliminates any inconsistencies!
Escali Primo Digital Food Scale
I rely on the Escali digital scale for whatever measuring I might do, and its weight toggles between pounds, ounces and grams.
While these variations aren’t a big deal for many recipes, they can be a big deal for cookies. Specifically: if you pack a heavy cup of flour, your cookies will come out too puffy. They won’t fall and sink in the same way as mine did.
How To Use Measuring Cups Without Overfilling or Overpacking The Ingredients
To fill a measuring cup properly, you need to first set the measuring cup on a flat, level surface like your kitchen counter. Spoon the ingredient into the measuring cup until it forms a small mound within the cup. Use a butter knife or bench scraper to level off the mound so that the ingredient is flush with the top edges of the measuring cup.
Finally, if you’re measuring a dry ingredient that has a tendency to clump or get packed down (like flour, confectioners’ sugar, or cocoa powder), give it a quick whisk in its container first. Then, scoop the ingredient into the measuring cup as I described.
2. You deliberately (or accidentally!) reduced the sugar in the recipe.
Many people often deliberately reduce the sugar in baking recipes for health reasons, or for fear of the recipe being “too sweet.” But the fact is that sugar is in baking recipes for reasons beyond flavor and sweetness! In baking, sugar helps baked good spread evenly and consistently. It also adds moisture and color to the baked goods. If you went this route, it’s likely that your cookies will stay puffy and taste drier than mine.
But how do you accidentally reduce the sugar in the recipe? Similar to how you accidentally use too much flour in a recipe—by failing to use measuring cups and spoons properly. Read my instructions in the question above on how to scoop and fill a measuring cup the right way.
3. You are baking chilled cookie dough but didn’t thaw the dough slightly beforehand.
Many cookie recipes can be frozen. That is, the cookie dough can be scooped and then frozen for baking later. And in these cases, you need to thaw the cookie dough slightly when baking from frozen.
What does that mean? Simply set the cookie dough out on a lined sheet pan (the same one you’re planning on baking the cookies on!) as the oven preheats. It usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes for most ovens to preheat. The 10 to 15 minutes out at room temperature will allow the cookie dough to thaw slightly and bake up nicely in the oven. If you skip this thaw, your cookies will come out puffy!
4. You used brown butter and didn’t add any liquid to the dough to account for moisture loss.
I love using brown butter in baked goods, especially cookies (see: Nutty, Chewy, Toasted Brown Butter Snickerdoodles and Brown Butter Chai Crinkle Cookies). But the truth is that brown butter makes your cookies puffier. You can see this in the two pictures below. They’re the same snickerdoodle recipe—My Best Snickerdoodle Recipe. However, one is made with regular butter while the puffier one is made with brown butter.
Why? Brown butter involves cooking the butter until all its water content boils and evaporates. Without the water, the remaining milk solids caramelize and turn into brown butter. Unfortunately, this water (and other liquids) helps melt the sugar in the cookie dough. And without it, you’ll end up with puffy cookies that don’t spread as much since the sugar isn’t mixing with as much liquid.
That’s why the best cookie recipes that use brown butter usually instruct you to add around 1 Tablespoon of water for every stick (4 ounces or 113 grams) of brown butter. Doing so accounts for that moisture loss, and helps the cookies spread and be less puffy.
How To Fix Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies
In addition to all the elements above, sometimes, using the wrong kind of chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie recipe can make the cookies puffy.
Chocolate chips are made with stabilizers like more cocoa solids and paraffin wax (yes, the kind of wax candles are made out of!) to ensure that they keep their shape when baked. They tend to stay 3-dimensional, leading to a puffy cookie that doesn’t fall flat.
In my experience, Toll House Chocolate Chips and Guittard Chocolate Chips almost always make really puffy chocolate cookies. I tend to avoid them and instead use other brands I like. Learn more in this post for The Best Chocolate For Chocolate Chip Cookies.
More Troubleshooting and Baking Resources
Did you find this post helpful? If so, check out my other posts exploring common baking issues and how to troubleshoot them!
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Weeknight Baking:
Recipes to Fit your Schedule
Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
