In this article, we will be highlighting different methods of how to soften hard cookies. Cookies are the staple of pretty much every holiday season you can name. They are easily customizable. Such a wide assortment of recipes makes it easy to top off any occasion with a delectable treat to satisfy any sweet tooth or a lingering craving on an average day. There is not much that can go wrong other than when your once soft and chewy goodness goes rogue.
We are talking hard and stale or otherwise known as any baker or sweet tooth’s nightmare. But is that all there is to it? Are your once soft cookies destined to be tossed into the bin? Or perhaps, as daunting as the hard texturing can be, there may be a way to get past that unwanted crunchiness and salvage them to become soft and tasty once again. There are indeed a couple of ways to make hard cookies soft after they have gone hard, as it turns out.
Baking And Storing Cookies
Some may say that the answer is to avoid getting the cookies hard in the first place throughout the baking and storage process. There is a point in that prevention is often more convenient than the remedy. Means such as avoiding putting flour in excess, using room temperature ingredients, being wary of overbaking, and storing in Ziploc bags and airtight containers, all make for terrific means to prevention.
As convenient as prevention is, accidents do happen. The cookies will overbake at some point. Maybe you put in too much flour. Or, you were in a rush and didn’t have time to leave out ingredients such as the eggs and butter to warm up to room temperature. Or perhaps, you left out the cookies ventilating for too long. It is essential to know what’s next in those instances and where to go from there.
How To Soften Hard Cookies
1) How to Soften Hard Cookies With Bread
As unsuspecting as it is, the answer to how to make hard cookies soft may lie in the bread. Plain white bread, to be exact. Wonderbread, Nature’s Own, Pepperidge Farm, you name it. The list goes on and on. It does not matter what brand name so long as it is plain white bread. For all the whole wheat bread connoisseurs out there, I’m afraid we will have to leave that in the pantry to shine for a different day. You might be wondering what a loaf of plain white bread could possibly do for you — wonders as it turns out; perhaps that’s why it’s “Wonderbread.”
All you need to do to make your hard cookies soft again is take a slice or even merely a fourth of a slice will do, depending on the number of cookies you are trying to make soft. Next, you’ll put the slice into the container with those very cookies that you are trying to soften. Check on the hard cookies after a couple of hours. The longer the bread is with the cookies, the more successful you will be at softening your cookies.
You are probably wondering what exactly does this magical slice of bread do to make the hard cookies soft? How does it do it? The moisture from the bread slice creates a slightly humid atmosphere in the container, to which the hardened cookies are readily welcome and accepted. The humidity radiating from the bread’s natural moisture is what will make the cookies soft yet again. Depending on how hardened the cookies were, you may need to replenish the container with a fresh slice of bread if the bread you previously inserted goes stale.
2) How to Soften Hard Cookies With Apple
Are you out of bread? No worries. Take a look into your refrigerator or perhaps your tabletop. Do you happen to have any apples in stock? If yes, lucky for you, you have what it takes to make your hard cookies soft again. Just like plain white bread, apple also has a similar seemingly magical tendency to make cookies soft. Place a slice of apple into the container with the cookies you want to soften. This works the same way. The apple’s moisture will create a slightly humid environment in the container, to which the hardened cookies will absorb and regain some moisture, resulting in making the cookies soft again.
3) How to Soften Hard Cookies With a Microwave
Suppose you do not have plain white bread or apples. Perhaps you are running low on your supply and looking for a different alternative. In that case, there is yet another solution for unlocking the mystery of softening hard cookies. Moisten a paper towel. The keyword here is: moisten – not drench. You will place the moistened towelette lightly on top of the hardened cookies. Make sure that the cookies are in a microwave-safe container for this solution as the next step will require the use of a microwave.
In this instance, the microwave can either be your assistant or your rival. The digits you enter into the microwave timer will determine which of the two roles it will assume for you. Every microwave varies, but on average, ten quick seconds should do the trick. If you feel like you need to add more time, it is best to add only a couple of seconds at a time. Adding too many seconds can completely tarnish your attempts at making the cookies soft and instead harden them. This microwave and towelette trick work similarly to the previous two methods. The moisture from the moistened towelette combined with the heat of the microwave will create a humid space that will replenish the hard cookies. If you haven’t already caught on, it’s the humidity that unlocks the mystery of how to make hard cookies soft.
Enjoy Your Soft And Chewy Cookies
The answer to making cookies soft may also be as simple as changing where you store the cookies. If they were in the refrigerator, try switching them to a room-temperature environment. That may be enough to soften them up to an edible state. You probably wouldn’t have guessed it, but as it turns out, cookies that have hardened might not be such a nightmare after all.