There could be a few things that cause flat cookies. Your baking soda may have lost potency- and was unable to act to make the cookies raise. Your butter may have been a bit too warm, and melted before the batter could set. You may also simply need a little more flour to hold it all together. Flour measured by the cup, rather than weight, can give you variable results depending on how much or how little you scoop compared to the recipe writer. Sometimes flour is also drier or damper than other times, depending on the humidity levels. You can check the potency of your soda by adding a 1/4 teaspoon of it to a bowl, and adding in 2 teaspoons of vinegar. You should see pretty instantaneous bubbling, if you don't- it's time to replace it. The butter should soft, but not squishably so. It is soft enough when you can press your finger in it and make a print, without pressing into the butter much. It should not look greasy or shiny. It's hard to gauge flour, so it's worth it to bake off a test cookie and see if you need to adjust. If the test cookie spreads too much, then add in a few tablespoons of flour. If it stays in a giant lump, you can add in a little water or milk to loosen matters a bit. I'm not sure what conversions you are referring to, but if you let us all know- you may get better help.
That's really helpful, thank you. I should probably have have added more flour before baking another trayful
Conversions are cups to ounces This recipe calls itself the 'practically perfect cookie' but...
2 1/4 cups flour - ??plain or SR, I used 9 oz plain flour 1 tspn baking soda - fine 1 level tspn salt - omitted - I don't add extra salt 3/4 cup white sugar 3/4 cup dark brown sugar - I used 11 oz sugar 2 sticks sweet butter - I used 8 oz salted butter (???sweet butter) 1 tspn vanilla extract - omitted, not keen on the flavour 2 large eggs - fine 1 pkt choc chips - 8 oz not 12 oz
Oven 375°F - I used 190° C
Suggestions welcomed - but not sure if I'll bother with this recipe again!
Your notes has you using 11 oz sugar. Did you use all white sugar or a combination of both white and brown? The reason this is important is the acidity in the brown sugar. The baking soda is going to need the acid in the brown sugar (from the molasses) to react and provide leavening. If you used all white sugar, that is the reason the cookies are flat. White sugar is neutral (i.e. no acidity), hence no react and no gas formed to make the cookie dough puff.
Also, why only 9 oz of plain flour? For 2 1/4 cups, you would have needed 11.25 ounce of flour.
Don't give up, please. Sometimes all you need is a tweek or two to make a recipe work for you. I taught my kids to bake cookies with this recipe- and it actually produces very good cookies. Now, you used plain flour- and not the self-rising. Self rising flour contains baking powder and salt, so not using it removed a leavener that would have helped keep your cookies plumper. Easy to fix- next time add in 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. Sweet butter, in "southern" parlance is unsalted butter, made with sweet cream as opposed to cream that sat and ripened overnight. Nowdays it means mostly just unsalted butter. Sweet, not salty in other words. If you don't like vanilla, you can use just about any other extract you like. We've used almond, hazelnut, coffee, and mixed spice, and all tasted pretty good. Dark brown sugar, as HalfPint noted, reacts with the soda to give you a rise. So in this case, it is important. So is a bit of moisture, so if you opt out of the extract, you still might want to add in the same amount of water. Yeah, it's a small amount, but it does make a difference to the soda. How many chips you add is not really a big deal. You just don't have as many chips in relation to the amount of cookie batter, it's not detrimental. If you don't want to add in salt, it's also fine to use the salted butter and leave the other out. It's mostly to balance taste so sweet doesn't become the overwhelming experience. So far as the amount of flour in ounces- that's a tough one. Various sources will call 1 cup of flour 4.5 ounces, while others, like Cook's Illustrated, uses 5 ounces per cup. So your call for 4.5 ounces per cup and using the 9 ounces would be okay- except you did need more flour. It's fine to weigh on the light side, because you can always add in more flour- it's tough to take it out again, and sometimes adding liquid will upset things. Your flour can also weigh more or less depending on the moisture content- and you can't know that without a lab. So if the day is damp, you may need more. If you are in the midst of a drought, maybe use less. After you've made the recipe a few times, you'll get a feel for the dough and make adjustments without really having to think it out so much. And don't worry about not doing a test cookie. I don't always bother either- and I've been caught a time or two myself. But even flat cookies are edible, and make a dandy topping for all sorts of things from ice cream to "cookie croutons" for a fruit salad.
Hi Lori T - Many thanks to you and to the other helpful folk who have replied. I was going to ditch the recipe - but actually, the cookies have all vanished, and my son-in-law said that they tasted 'amazing'! So I'll try again, probably using half quantities (the recipe makes a LOT of cookies) and adjust the flour a tad. I spent a year in the USA, and found that UK recipes didn't work too well over there, just as US recipes don't always work well in the UK. I think that more than the simple substitutions, ingredients are slightly different, and the subtle differences all add up, particularly in baking. So thank you all for your help and encouragement.
Jkgla--my Lyon friend says the same thing about US flour vs. French flour and sugar! I've found Stella Parks article on this extremely insightful--https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/faq-difference-brown-white-granulated-sugar-baking-cookies.html--between Food 52 & Serious Eats my cooking AND baking skills have soared--and I've cooked & baked for 50 years!
Hi Cosmicook, Thank you for your reply, but the web page you site comes up as 'page not found' - could you possibly send the URL again. Many thanks for your suggestion.
Try this https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/faq-difference-brown-white-granulated-sugar-baking-cookies.html If it's still not there go to serious eats and search for Stella Parks sugar differences --she is AMAZING!
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12 Comments
Conversions are cups to ounces
This recipe calls itself the 'practically perfect cookie' but...
2 1/4 cups flour - ??plain or SR, I used 9 oz plain flour
1 tspn baking soda - fine
1 level tspn salt - omitted - I don't add extra salt
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar - I used 11 oz sugar
2 sticks sweet butter - I used 8 oz salted butter (???sweet butter)
1 tspn vanilla extract - omitted, not keen on the flavour
2 large eggs - fine
1 pkt choc chips - 8 oz not 12 oz
Oven 375°F - I used 190° C
Suggestions welcomed - but not sure if I'll bother with this recipe again!
Also, why only 9 oz of plain flour? For 2 1/4 cups, you would have needed 11.25 ounce of flour.
Thanks, jkgla
If it's still not there go to serious eats and search for Stella Parks sugar differences --she is AMAZING!