According To Science, You Really Need To Scrape The Bowl When Making Cookies
If you've ever followed your favorite cookie recipe perfectly and still ended up with poor quality results, then you might be ruining your bake by skipping one crucial step. When a recipe tells you to scrape down the sides of your bowl, that might seem like an insignificant note, but it can have a serious impact on the final results.
Scraping down the side of the bowl isn't just a matter of housekeeping; it ensures that all of the ingredients are blended together cohesively. If you skip this step, you can end up with streaks of sugar or butter throughout your batter, or even an incorrect ratio of ingredients because you left some of the flour or oil stuck to the sides of your mixer.
This can produce flat cakes and cookies as well as browned cookies that don't match the rest of your bake, because some cookies will have a higher concentration of fat than others. It may look like they were just stuck in your oven's hot spot, but the issue might actually be improper mixing.
How often do you need to scrape down the bowl
The main reason to skip this step is that it's purely annoying. If you're working with a stand mixer, then you'll have to stop stirring completely, remove the mixing head from the bowl, and scrape down the sides. This raises the question — how often do you really need to scrape down the bowl?
As annoying as it is, the best fix is to scrape down your bowl after each new ingredient is added. Adding an ingredient, letting it mix briefly, and then scraping anything that may have gotten stuck to the sides should be enough to fix the inconsistent mixing problem. Don't forget to also scrape the bottom of the bowl as well as the mixing attachment itself. Flour, butter, and sugar can get stuck in clumps all throughout the mix. It also helps to fold the dough a few more times after its finished mixing to further ensure all the ingredients have been incorporated completely.
Of course, it helps that your stand mixer's attachment properly reaches the bottom of the bowl as well. If it doesn't, it can help to test it and adjust the mixing head as needed, though this won't replace the need for scraping down the sides.
The best tools for scraping the sides of bowls
Getting all of your ingredients off of a mixing bowl's sides is easier said than done. You can't use just any kitchen tool to properly unstick items like butter and flour without scratching the sides.
As its name implies, a bowl scraper is a great tool for this task. If you have one in your kitchen already, then you probably already know how essential they are. If you're buying your first, then there are a few things to look out for. Make sure it is flexible enough to bend into the shape of any bowl, but firm enough to give you leverage. It helps to have a bowl scraper that has flat and rounded sides as well.
The problem with bowl scrapers is that you may get your hands dirty reaching down into the bottom of the bowl. A good spatula can help with this. A spatula with a flexible head will allow you to completely reach to the bottom of the bowl and scrape all the ingredients back into the batter easily enough.