For every person with a sweet tooth, no-bake cookies can be the ultimate treat, especially when you don’t have an oven. They usually require just a few simple ingredients and are super easy to make, taking just a few minutes.
No-bake cookies can be made for all kinds of occasions and include the perfect recipe whether you’re new to baking, an old hand, or don’t have a stove.
Some no-bake recipes take just 3 minutes to make, but however long it takes to make your no-bake cookies, you want maximum results. And yet the cookies can also be difficult to get right—sometimes too soft and other times too hard, dry, and crumbly.
You want just the right ingredients to ensure cookies that turn out light, rich, and decadent. Sometimes no-bake cookies have the irritating way of turning out too dry and crumbly.
How to Fix Dry No-Bake Cookies
You need to know how to fix this problem so that people who eat your no-bake cookies wonder what your secrets are behind their deliciousness. We take a look at how you can fix the dry, crumbly cookie problem.
- Boil only for the specified time
To make no-bake cookies, you will need to mix ingredients such as butter, syrup, milk, granulated sugar, oats, and cocoa powder in a large saucepan over medium heat. The ingredients will be brought to a boil for just a minute.
You can start timing once the mixture is fully boiling and full of bubbles. If you boil it for longer than this time, the no-bake cookies will turn out dry and crumbly. So timing is of the utmost importance here.
When it comes to sweet treats, the longer the ingredients are cooked, the drier and harder they will be. So if the recipe says boil for a minute, stick strictly to this time.
- Check temperatures—perhaps buy a thermometer
Even though no-bake cookies are easy to make, some things can become a bit finicky. To avoid dryness in your cookies, the temperature has to be right. Clearly, if the mixture becomes too hot, the cookies will be dry and crumbly.
In fact, some bakers always have a thermometer available when baking. When they are finished making the cookies and placing them in a dish to set, they may detect already that they seem dry. This outcome can well be attributed to a too-hot and too-long cooking period.
Some baking experts say it can be hugely helpful to invest in a candy thermometer so that you know when to remove ingredients such as syrup and butter from the stove.
A thermometer can be especially helpful when you’re not good at recognizing visible cues that certain ingredients have reached the right temperature. This can help you know the exact time to remove ingredients from the stove.
- Add in some liquid
If the recipe for your no-bake cookies says that you must add milk or water but the texture of the dough isn’t sufficiently moist, you can add a teaspoon of milk and water and then mix the dough.
By adding just a teaspoon at a time, it won’t have a major impact on the dough. So, to fix the dry no-bake cookies, you will need to add some liquid, but you just have to do it slowly, Check the texture each time you add in an extra teaspoon of liquid.
When the dough is the right consistency, you can start to shape your cookies. Milk, a teaspoon of water, some vanilla essence, or even some egg yolk can all help to moisten the dough to give you fewer dry, crumbly cookies.
Some people would rather add in some fat, such as butter, but also just a teaspoon at a time. Your dough could lack fat because the recipe could be faulty, you measured incorrectly, or you used the wrong kind of fat—possibly substituting margarine.
Adding too much fat can also make the dough too oily, which will make it difficult for your cookies to set properly.
- Get manual
Cooking experts say that if your cookie dough looks dry and crumbly after mixing, the problem might be in overmixing, which is easy to do with an electric mixer. If too much air is incorporated into the cookie dough, it becomes dry.
Rather than using an electric mixer, manually mix the dough with your hands. Kneading the dough by hand gives you control over the dough, and you can also feel the texture of the dough.
To knead the dough by hand, push it down and forward and fold the dough over itself. You will feel it becomes soft and springy. This manual method reduces the chances of over-mixing. You will also use your hands to scoop out the dough and shape the cookies.
Certainly, if you have a recipe that suggests using an electric mixer, then follow the directions carefully and take special note of how long it is recommended to mix the dough.
- Don’t substitute ingredients
When you don’t follow a recipe properly or you choose to substitute ingredients as you like, it can result in dry cookie dough. Of course, if you run out of an ingredient or don’t have the required ingredient, substituting can often work.
For example, you can replace all-purpose flour with another type of flour and the overall consistency of the dough will remain roughly the same.
Improvising isn’t a bad thing at all, but sometimes when people run out of cocoa, they use hot chocolate powder instead of cocoa, and the entire consistency is altered, and they land up with dry, crumbly, no-bake cookies.
Perfect no-bake cookies with a tried and tested recipe
Want to know how to fix dry, no-bake cookies? Remember, when all is said and done, if your no-bake cookies are turning out too dry time after time, the solution to the problem may be simpler than you think.
It may simply be a case of trying another recipe. Then you can expect your no-bake cookies to have the perfect texture – not too dry and not too moist.