How to Save Burnt Cookies So the Batch Won’t Go to Waste

The bottom of your cookies can burn for a variety of reasons. Your oven is too hot. The cookies baked for too long. Even the color of your baking sheet affects the bottoms of your cookies. If you pull a batch of burnt cookies out of the oven, should you toss them all? Not necessarily!

Here’s a burnt cookie hack that might help save them.

What is the burnt cookie hack?

This cookie hack uses a Microplane. Some people have also used a box grater with multiple sides, choosing the finer grating option. Once the cookies have cooled, gently scrape the bottoms to remove the burnt part.

Does the burnt cookie hack actually work?

To see if this hack works, I put it to the test by baking a few cookies with the leftover chocolate chip cookie dough I had in the fridge. Overall, this does work, and it’s a genius hack! But there are a few things to keep in mind.

This burnt cookie hack will only work for certain types of cookies. For a cookie that’s meant to be soft and chewy, the cookie will likely fall apart while grating before you’re even able to get any of the burnt bits off of it. The same goes for very thin cookies such as sugar cookies that have a snap to them. However, if you have a batch of thick, crunchy cookies or bar cookies that are too burnt on the bottom, this hack will help keep them out of the trash.

It’s important to note that an overbaked cookie will still always be an overbaked cookie. Yes, grating off the exterior on the bottom can help to improve a cookie’s appearance and flavor a bit. However, when cookies are overbaked, they also dry out. Some even become incredibly hard (perfect for dunking). Burnt cookies will still have a lackluster texture and won’t taste as great, even if you soften them.

It’s not a perfect fix, but this hack can definitely help to keep you from throwing away an entire batch.