Cookie conundrum

I do two trays at a time in my home oven frequently. What I do, though is move the trays farther apart. I know this seems antithetical, but for cracked tops it really works. Move them closer to the top and closer to the bottom. My oven has 6 spaces, so I leave room for one space above and below.

If the cooking time is 18 minutes, I rotate top to bottom, front to back at the nine minute mark. I also find that the sugar that you use makes a huge difference. A finer grain sugar will hinder cracking. Bigger sugar crystals- like raw sugar or demerrara will help a lot. also make sure to smoosh the cookies with the palm of your hand if they are drop cookies.

I've been making molasses cookies about five times a week recently-- and I use this method, it works every time. I always, always use demerrara sugar. I have a standard, GE electric oven. Nothing special.

I did leave the dough overnight in the fridge and do two at a time. So I may have had two strikes against me. I have made them a few times before but this is the first time A) I've left them over night and not an hour and B) not had them crack the way I wanted. Thanks again guys your insight was quite helpful.

I just made some cookies with a crackly top and part of the instructions were to rotate them AND move them to a bottom rack halfway through, which probably does help get rid of any moisture but is dangerous burning wise. I've been testing back and forth but am also doing 1 tray at a time. My problem is more that my oven gets too hot, so I have to reduce the baking time after the first batch. Hard to say but if you have dough left, try 1 sheet at a time first. I suspect that may be the culprit.

I assume this is a recipe you have made before and you are just trying to troubleshoot an isolated case. If you don't bake too often, there is one other possibility of you leavening having lost some of its power over time, being baking powder or baking soda. Depending on how tricky the recipe is, a little excess moisture in the dough can also affect their ability to form cracks.

I cannot bake two trays of cookies at once in my oven. Even when I rotate the trays, I loose too much heat when I keep opening the oven.

No but I wanted them to have a similar top. I was power housing the cookies out today, maybe two trays was the problem. Some had it some didn't.

Was this a molasses cookie? I've had that happen before. Not sure I've got to the bottom of it, but only placing one tray in the oven at a time helps. If you have a convection oven, activating that may help.