quidditchgrrl | (no subject)

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Help! Call the *waaahhhhbulance*!

I'm having cookie trouble!

I've attempted the recipe on the Toll House chocolate chip cookie bag. No nuts. So far, so good.

When I bake them, however. They seem to have flattened out, with a ring of dough around the edges and the chocolate chips in the middle. The chips have melted along the bottom and the dough is a bit greasy/shiny.

The oven was at the right temp (although it's electric and can randomly change temp) for the cookies, 375 degrees for 9 minutes.

*wails* Advice! I'm desperate! Ransom will be considered.

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There is a magic secret.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes before baking. Then keep the batter cold between batches.

Works like a charm.

*cries* I did that! I'm wondering if it's a problem with the oven or under/over mixing...

Maybe it was the pans. My grandmother's old thin pans do that, but my airbake pans don't.

My air-bake pan did the worst, but then again, I went to 11 minutes on those -.- Do you find that you need to bake a little longer with the airbake? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Polar sheets are what I'm using right now. Bakery-standard, and they did very well on my peanut butter and macaroons.

I swear I need my mother's paper-thin, pitted aluminum cookie sheet - damn thing baked perfect cookies. Or maybe it was just my mother's touch. *grumps* Damn genes. :P

I took your advice one step further, and after I panned the chilled dough I'm putting it back in the fridge. The last batch I did was a little better, so hopefully having both pan and dough at the same temp will do the trick!

Try more flour and a bit more baking powder.

Whenever I've baked chocolate chip cookies, the dough has been sort of "sticky" -- on my fingers and on the spoon -- before I drop it onto the sheet. I don't have problems when the dough is that consistency.

Maybe a tablespoon of flour? Or more like 1/4 cup? My dough was pretty sticky, but I was able to get it off my spatula.

*goes to try*

Start with a 1/4 cup, then work up from there.

If I recall correctly, the basic recipe calls for 3 cups and I usually put in 3.5 cups.

I was about to say the same thing, so I'll just ditto this. When they flatten like that, like little UFO's, the flour ratio is off. I end up flouring my hands alot, so that helps me.

And now I want to make cookies too. My husband brought home two gargantuan bags of chocolate chips, and I keep sneaking handfulls out of one of the bags.

Use parchment paper - even cooking and no mess to clean up. It keeps cookies from spreading too much as well.

I've never had much luck with the toll house recipe and perfer to use a different that includes vanilla pudding in the mix.

Vanilla pudding, you say? *ponders* That would certainly help with texture and spreading.

I think I'll get parchment paper for the next time I make chocolate chip cookies. I'm moving on to oatmeal now. *grumps*

I tend to use two regular spoons to determine the right amount of dough in a ball so it flattens into your standard cookie.

Also, whether baking one or two trays at a time, bake for five minutes on the top rack and five minutes on the bottom rack for more even heat distribution and yummy cookies that stay soft for a few days.

Did you remember to turn from pre-heat to bake?

Good luck!

LOL, there is no "pre-bake" on my stove - it's so old it has buttons rather than knobs!

I'm going to try cutting the dough to the right size and chilling both the dough and the pan.

I'm going to third the issue being the flour ratio. I've made some pretty nasty batches of chocolate chip cookies (always the Toll House recipe) because there wasn't enough flour. In fact, I remember the first time I had that quandary, my mom took one look at the batch and told me to add flour.

Good luck with the cookie making! I'm pondering baking some next weekend, after I force myself to clean house, lol. Should be fun!

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