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by Sara
(California)
Q. Hello,
I am making a choc chip cookie recipe which calls for chilled butter cubes (1 cup), 2.5 cups flour, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 tsp baking soda, vanilla, 2 eggs, choc chips. It basically says that I should not overwork the sugars, butter, and dough and refrigerate the dough before baking but dropping it with an ice cream scoop onto parchment paper and baking at 300F for 20 minutes so that the edges are brown but center is soft and chewy.
My problem is that the dough did not spread out in the oven and my cookies were more thick. Can you please tell me why this might have happened?
Thanks!
A. HMMM....Your recipe looks like good one. The ingredients usually reveal all, so there is just one alteration I would recommend. One thing I would do off the bat is up your soda to 1 whole tsp. This will create more gases in the cookie that will raise and then flatten your cookie during the baking process. There are just a couple of more things that stand out to me that might be worth looking at.
I would have to disagree with the "not over mixing the butter sugar" stage. I have always maintained that it is not possible to overwork this stage in the mixing process. Mixing these ingredients together whips air into the butter. I give mine good whir until the butter and sugars are light and fluffy. At least a couple of minutes. Whether this has anything to do with your slow spread is anyone's guess and I can't say for sure. But it would be worth an experiment in changing this one factor.
The bigger factor to me could be the very low oven temperature. I understand the whole "low and slow" philosophy. It's a good one, and I use that same philosophy when I am baking a very large cookie. But, even at that I have never gone as low as 300 degrees. Not necessary in my opinion. For regular sized cookies I would not go below 350 degrees. You CAN bake a cookie at higher temperatures and get that gooey chewy bliss you are looking for. :o) I think you need some heat to get those cookies to flatten out some for you.
I always bake my cookies at 375 degrees. I bake them from 9-10 minutes until the edges and very peaks are golden brown. Then , I take them out and let them sit on the cookie sheet for a minute or two. They remain very soft and chewy for me. If you do not want to go that high try 350. (I live in high altitude so the higher temperature for me works well.) Higher temperatures will work better for you especially if your dough is nice and chilled. If you bake them right after mixing, you could go lower on the temperature.
So, more soda and higher temperature and I think you will have a cookie that spreads more for you.
FYI: Ovens can be VERY temperamental! Get yourself a good oven thermometer to make sure you are baking at accurate temperatures.
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