Photos show how common baking mistakes can drastically change your chocolate chip cookies

Rachel AskinasiMay 13, 2020, 22:47 IST

These were all made by tweaking the same recipe.Rachel Askinasi/Insider

I made common baking mistakes (on purpose!) as I was baking chocolate chip cookies to see how they would affect texture and taste.
From measuring flour improperly to mistaking baking powder for baking soda, there is a lot that can go wrong.
Leaving out flour resulted in a crispy cookie, and omitting eggs brought out the salt in the recipe I tried.
Mixing all ingredients at once left lumps in the batter, and using baking powder made the cookie taste slightly artificial.
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I'm not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, and I often make mistakes with the simplest of recipes. I freestyle a lot while I'm cooking, but doing so with baked goods could result in a disaster.

In order to conquer my fear of baking, and as a long-time lover of chocolate chip cookies, I wanted to see what would happen if I made some common mistakes while making a batch from scratch.

To keep things even, I used the same recipe — the Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe right off my bag of chocolate chips — for my trial-and-error project.

From overmixing the batter to using too much flour, here's what happened when I made 10 classic mistakes while baking cookies.

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Just by slightly altering the same recipe, you can make tons of different types of cookies.

Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Using too little butter won't kill your cookies and they'll still be tasty, but it will make them lightweight.

A cookie with too little butter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Too much butter makes cookies turn out just as you'd expect: very buttery.

A cookie with too much butter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Leaving out most of the called-for sugar, my cookies seemed to grow upward instead of outward.

A cookie with too little sugar. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

On the flip side, using too much egg also drastically changed the cookies and gave them a spongy, cake-like texture.

A cookie with too many eggs. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Leaving out eggs makes a huge difference to the texture and flavor, and results in a dry and salty cookie.

A cookie with no eggs. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Loading all ingredients in the bowl at once may cut down on time, but it compromises the texture of your cookies.

A cookie made by mixing all ingredients at once. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

On the contrary, not using enough flour will make your cookies crisp and thin.

A cookie with too little flour. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Too much flour can result in cookies that look like scoops of ice cream.

A cookie with too much flour. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

It's easy to slip up and use baking powder instead of baking soda, but if you do, the chocolate chips will probably taste a little different.

A cookie with baking powder. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Overmixing your batter can lead to runny cookies.

A cookie with overmixed batter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

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