Banana Oatmeal Cookies Recipe | Simple Nourished Living (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade oatmeal cookies hard? ›

Not Enough Moisture: Ensure you're using the right amount of butter in your recipe and that it's at the correct temperature (softened not melted) when you start. Oatmeal cookies require more moisture to stay soft. Consider adding an extra egg yolk or a touch of milk to your dough to enhance moisture content.

A recipe that calls for both ingredients probably contains an acid, but not enough to completely leaven the batter or dough. Baking soda also serves another important purpose when it comes to cookies: It encourages spreading by raising the mixture's pH, which slows protein coagulation.

The best oatmeal cookies, like the kind we're sharing here, are soft and chewy through the center with crispy edges. They're studded with plenty of old-fashioned whole rolled oats and plump, sweet raisins.

Adding too many eggs can result in gummy, cake-like cookies. Adding too few eggs can result in dry, crumbly cookies. Beat each one in separately and thoroughly. If you run out of eggs while baking and find that you need more, you can add 1/4 cup vegetable oil for each egg required.

Light corn syrup is another ingredient that you can add to cookie dough that will help it stay softer longer. The corn syrup you buy at the grocery store is not the high-fructose corn syrup that soft drinks are made with; it's a sugar that is liquid at room temperature and helps other sugars say liquid at high heat.

It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch. That's right, the flavorless thickening agent used for soups, stews, and curries is also the secret weapon for baked goods that boast a silky-smooth mouthfeel.

Baking powder will change the texture of cookies. Baking powder will result in a softer and fluffier cookie. Baking soda gives cookies a harder and crunchier cookie texture. Some cookie recipes combine both baking soda and baking powder in the ingredients.

You technically can leave out baking soda in certain recipes (like chocolate chip cookies or pancakes) in a pinch, but you need to understand that your finished product will not be as light and fluffy as the recipe intended. Unless you have no other option, you really should use a leavening substitute.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes).

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.

What kind of oatmeal is best for baking cookies? ›

Go for old-fashioned oats or rolled oats (they're the same thing, but sometimes go by one name or the other). They result in the perfect chewy cookie.

*Sometimes, but not always, the natural chlorophyll in sunflower seeds reacts with baking soda, causing a green color inside the cookies after they cool. This is completely harmless! Depending on the recipe you can reduce baking soda by about one third or a splash of lemon juice may help prevent any “greening”.

Warm cookie sheets cause the fat in the dough to melt. As a result, cookies start to spread before they even get into the oven. Allow cookie sheets to cool completely before baking additional cookies.

Oven temperatures are a crucial factor in baking. If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

There are a few common methods for softening cookies, including microwaving them, heating them in the oven, and placing them in an airtight container with a slice of bread.

Keep Them Sealed

The key to keeping cookies fresh and soft is to seal them in an airtight container, like a resealable freezer bag. And here's a nifty little trick: add a piece of bread to the bag. You might think that the bread trick works because the cookies absorb moisture from the bread.

Whatever moisture is left in the cookies is always in a state of evaporation. At the same time, the sugars and starches are solidifying. Ergo, hard cookies.

The bread/apple trick

Here's a baker's trick you'll find in our new Monster Cookies recipe: Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale.