What to Do When Cookie Dough Is Too Sticky

Unlike cooking, which allows the chef to get a little more creative with ingredients and measurements, baking is all about precision: When the balance of your ingredients is off, your final product isn’t going to end up how you expect. For instance, if you add a bit too much moisture to your cookie dough, you may find yourself with overly sticky cookie dough on your hands (literally). When cookie dough is too sticky, your cookies are likely to come out either too greasy, too flat, too crispy, or a combination of these.

Thankfully, sticky cookie dough is relatively easy to fix using one of two methods.

Solution #1: Refrigerate Your Dough

One of the main causes of sticky dough is adding too much melted butter. If you put your dough in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour, the butter will firm up a bit and make the dough much easier to handle.

Solution #2: Add Flour or Cornstarch

When cookie dough is too sticky, you may have an imbalance of wet and dry ingredients. You can fix this by adding a teaspoon of flour or cornstarch at a time until your dough is just how you want. The added flour or cornstarch will absorb the excess liquid and reduce the dough’s overall stickiness.