Other than experiencing a round of sorrow while mixing Christmas cookie dough from a recipe card handwritten by my mom, I am having difficulty with making cookies of late. I am still wondering if my oven, along with my house, is cursed. They want to be flat cookies instead of <insert other shape here>. Maybe it’s a testimony of my life. Maybe that’s too deep.
Regardless, my favored-by-many oatmeal cookies from a recipe I have tweaked to perfection since 1991 just want to be a mass of flat goo with a few oatmeal lumps protruding. What really ticks me off though, is that one of my family’s traditional holiday cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, just can’t stand up to the oven anymore – they’ve reduced themselves to a sort of ‘disc’ shape after many successful years of being perfect little balls doused in powdered sugar. In fact, last evening I was getting so frustrated and desperate I actually rolled the dough into a sort of column, hoping that in the heated melting process, a round ball would remain. Not my luck. When I turned on the oven light and took a gander, they’d all flopped over to resemble something more like Russian Tea Turds.
I’ve searched the web to find solutions to this recent problem with old, tried and true recipes and maybe I’ll try again. Any hints out there?
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Nov 28, 2007
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I get the flat cookie thing all the time. See what Rose Levy Beranbaum has to say at this link:
http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2005/12/fixing_flat_cookies.html
The summary is that you should use lower protein flour and chill the dough before baking. I saw a couple other notes suggesting that you 1. purchase new baking powder; 2. use more shortening than butter because butter spreads more, and; 3. rotate baking pans in between batches so that each pan is thoroughly cooled before you put dough on it.
I'm not a cookie guru, by far, but they sounded like pretty good suggestions to me. I will definitely try them out myself because every cookie I've ever baked in the past gazillion years has been flat!
Posted by: Stephanie | Nov 28, 2007 at 04:32 PM
A break and a fresh start usually helps me.
Posted by: Scott | Nov 28, 2007 at 09:32 PM
Oh, and BTW I'll take any flat cookies you might be getting rid of:)
Flat, round, square - they all taste good right before bed.
Posted by: Scott | Nov 28, 2007 at 09:45 PM
I have no solution, but I am with Scott...please pass the Russian Tea Turds.
Posted by: Tulip Girl | Dec 01, 2007 at 06:37 PM