Cookies are one of the most common products created in ReciPal and there are a few FDA labeling rules that are especially important to pay attention to.

The biggest considerations are serving size, moisture loss, and ingredient statements. This guide walks through the cookie-specific rules and practical tips you need to create an accurate, compliant label. And when you're ready ReciPal's nutrition label maker has everything you need built right in.

Determine the Correct Cookie Serving Size

The FDA's Reference Amount Customarily Consumed (RACC) for cookies is 30 grams.

The percentage that an individual cookie makes up of the reference amount determines how a serving should be calculated:

• ≤ 50% of reference amount - round to the nearest whole number
• > 50% and <67% - you can declare either one or two units as the serving size
• ≥ 67% and < 200% of reference amount - serving size must be declared as one unit
• ≥ 200% of reference amount - serving size must be declared as the common fractional amount closest to the reference amount (1⁄2, 1⁄3, 1⁄4, 1⁄5, 1⁄6, or smaller fractions that can be generated by further division by 2 or 3)

Example Cookie Serving Size Calculation

If one cookie weighs 9g then it is 30% of the reference amount (9g cookie ÷ 30g reference amount = 0.3). Since one cookie is less than 50% of the reference amount, we round to the number of whole cookies that comes closest to 30g.

30g ÷ 9g = 3.33 cookies

The serving size would be 3 cookies (27g).

💪Pro Tip: It's natural for there to be variation in the weight of your cookies. For calculating the serving size it's best to weigh a number of samples and take the average.

Serving Size Chart

Weight of one cookie	FDA serving size
6.7g - 8.5g	4 cookies
8.6g - 12g	3 cookies
12g - 15g	2 cookies
> 15g - < 20.1g	1 or 2 cookies
20.1g - < 60g	1 cookie
60g - < 72g	1/2 cookie
72g - < 102g	1/3 cookie
103g - < 133g	1/4 cookie

ReciPal has tools to determine serving size based on the weight of your cookie, so you don't have to calculate these ranges manually.

Account for Moisture Loss During Baking

Baking changes the weight of your cookies. As the dough bakes, water is driven off, making the finished cookie more nutrient-dense per gram than the original dough.

If you don't account for this moisture loss, the nutrition information per gram—and therefore per serving—can be inaccurate.

How to account for baking loss in ReciPal

ReciPal gives you two ways to account for moisture loss:

Enter your raw and finished weights.
Enter the weight of the ingredients before baking and the weight of the finished cookies. ReciPal will calculate the yield automatically.

Enter a moisture loss percentage.
If you already know the expected moisture loss for your recipe, you can enter the percentage directly.

We recommend weighing your finished recipe yield and taking an average. Baking loss can vary based on bake time, oven conditions, and other production factors.

Pay Attention to Your Ingredient Statement

Cookie recipes often contain ingredients that themselves have multiple ingredients. Common examples include:

• Chocolate chips
• M&M's and other candy
• Frosting
• Graham crackers

When an ingredient contains subingredients, those subingredients need to be declared in parentheses as part of your ingredient statement.

For example, if your cookie contains chocolate chips, you can't simply list "chocolate chips" without also accounting for the ingredients in those chocolate chips.

ReciPal can manage these nested ingredients for you, making it easier to generate the complete ingredient statement.

Use Subrecipes for Common Cookie Bases

If you make different cookies that use the same base, ReciPal's subrecipe functionality can save a lot of time. To turn a recipe into a subrecipe just click the "More" dropdown and select "Create subrecipe". From there you can use the subrecipe like an ingredient - add it to new recipes and set the amount you're using.

For example, you could create a standard sugar cookie dough as a subrecipe and use it as the base for several products:

• Frosted sugar cookies
• Sprinkle cookies
• Other flavored or topped cookies

Instead of entering the base ingredients separately for every recipe, you can maintain one master subrecipe.

If you update the subrecipe later, the change can flow through to the recipes that use it.

This can be especially useful for bakeries that use the same dough, frosting, filling, or other component across multiple products.

Create Your Cookie Labels with Confidence

Cookie labeling has a few nuances that are easy to overlook, but once you understand the key rules, creating a compliant label becomes much more straightforward.

Whether you're creating your first cookie label or managing dozens of cookie varieties, ReciPal makes it easier to build, update, and maintain accurate nutrition labels as your recipes evolve.